THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 

FROM  THE  LIBRARY  OF 

JIM  TULLY 

GIFT  OF 
MRS.  JIM  TULLY 


OLIVE  LATHAM 

SECOND  EDITION 


JACK    RAYMOND 

By  E.  L.  VOYNICH 
Clothy    $Z.SOi    paper^   ^o    centi 


"The  strongest  novel  that  the 
present  season  has  produced." — 
Pall  Mall  Gazette,  London. 

"Wonderful  and  terrible;  won- 
derful in  its  intellectual  effect, 
terrible  for  the  intensity  of  feel- 
ing effects." — Boston  Courier. 


OLIVE  LATHAM 


By 
E.  L.  Voynich 

Author  of  "The  Gadfly,"  "Jack  Raymond,"  etc. 


Die  alten,  bosen  Lieder, 
Die  Traume  bos  und  arg, 

Die  lasst  uns  jetzt  begraben. 
Holt  einen  grossen  Sarg. 


PHILADELPHIA  AND  LONDON 
J.  B.  LIPPINCOTT    COMPANY 

1904 


Copyright,  1904 
By  J.  B.  LippiNCOTT  Company 


Published  May,  1904 


Electrotyped  and  Printed  by 
y.  B.  Lippincott  Company^  Philadelphia,   U.  S.  A. 


6  0^3 


PART  I 


3 


OLIVE  LATHAM 


CHAPTER    I 

When  Alfred  Latham  left  Cambridge,  in  the 
early  sixties,  he  carried  with  him  the  reputation  of 
a  person  likely  to  make  his  mark  in  the  world. 
Should  he  fail  to  do  so,  one  of  the  dons  told  him,  it 
would  be  not  only  disappointing,  but  absurd. 

Certainly  the  outlook  appeared  excellent.  In  addi- 
tion to  his  very  creditable  college  record,  the  young 
man's  possessions  included  a  sound  body  and  a  fine 
intellect.  He  had  no  vices  and  no  fads ;  a  fastidious 
temperament,  rather  than  any  definite  moral  code, 
protected  him  against  the  grosser  temptations,  ath- 
letic habits  and  a  sense  of  humour  against  the  more 
subtle  ones.  The  son  of  a  cautious,  old-fashioned 
country  banker,  he  had  grown  up  in  pure  air  and 
wholesome  surroundings,  hampered  neither  by  riches 
nor  by  poverty.  His  interests  ranged  from  Assyri- 
ology  to  the  improvement  of  drains,  and  he  could 
take  as  keen  a  pleasure  in  watching  a  well-played 
cricket-match  as  in  reading  Dante  or  listening  to  an 
organ-fugue  of  Bach. 


8  OLIVE    LATHAM 

The  one  real  passion  of  his  heart  was  education 
for  the  masses.  His  dreams  were  of  public  libraries 
and  free  universities,  of  technical  and  physical  train- 
ing for  all,  of  evening  lectures  and  model  primary 
schools. 

As  he  was  the  eldest  son,  it  had  been  expected  that 
he  would  become  a  partner  in  his  father's  bank ;  but 
when,  on  leaving  college,  he  announced  that  he 
wished  to  be  a  schoolmaster,  his  relatives  cheerfully 
acknowledged  his  right  to  choose  a  life  for  himself. 

Their  feeling  changed  when  he  refused  a  good 
opening  which  they  had  been  at  some  pains  to 
get  for  him,  on  the  ground  that  he  had  already 
accepted  a  ragged-school  post  in  the  slum  district  of 
a  northern  factory  town.  Family  and  friends  pro- 
tested, earnestly  but  vainly.  Of  what  use,  they  asked, 
could  all  his  scholarship  be  in  such  a  place?  What 
could  he  hope  to  accomplish  by  wasting  his  talents 
on  these  rough  Lancashire  hobbledehoys?  "Just 
wait  till  my  boys  grow  up,"  he  would  answer,  "  and 
you  will  see  whether  I  can't  do  something." 

They  had  not  so  long  to  wait.  Within  two  years 
of  leaving  Cambridge  he  fell  in  love  and  married. 
His  friends  considered  the  choice  a  most  happy  one ; 
his  wife's  beauty  was  apparent  to  all  eyes,  and  the 
sweet  face  was  an  index  to  as  sweet  a  character. 
Their  only  doubt  was  how  a  woman  so  gently  bred 


OLIVE    LATHAM  9 

and  so  weak  in  health  could  bear  the  material  condi- 
tions into  which  her  husband's  enthusiasm  dragged 
her.  Poverty,  drudgery,  uncomfortable  surround- 
ings, and  a  house  subject  to  a  perpetual  invasion  of 
grimy  street-boys,  were  all  very  well,  they  said,  for 
him,  since  apparently  he  happened  to  be  so  made  as 
to  like  that  sort  of  thing.  But  didn't  he  think  it  was 
a  bit  hard  on  Mary  ? 

However  hard  she  may  have  found  it,  Mary 
accepted  the  position  with  angelic  patience.  Recog- 
nizing from  the  first  her  intellectual  inferiority  to 
her  gifted  husband,  she  set  him  upon  a  pedestal  and 
worshipped  his  every  action.  She  was  a  devoutly 
religious  woman;  and  though  her  husband's  pas- 
sionate struggle  to  win  for  the  ignorant  the  privilege 
of  learning  seemed  to  her  a  less  satisfactory  form  of 
charity  than  the  blankets  and  soup-tickets  of  her 
girlhood,  he  was  undoubtedly  devoting  himself  to 
the  poor,  and  must,  therefore,  she  thought,  be  at 
heart  a  good  Christian,  though  he  did  not  always 
talk  like  one. 

Still,  for  a  lasting  support  against  the  daily 
pressure  of  so  much  discomfort,  an  imperfectly 
grasped  second-hand  scrap  of  somebody  else's  social 
ideal  is  not  much.  Too  sweet-tempered  to  complain, 
Mrs.  Latham  soon  found  herself  timidly  wishing 
that  Alfred's  philanthropy  could  take  a  more  usual 


10  OLIVE    LATHAM 

and  less  disagreeable  form.  Then  came  difficulties, 
one  upon  another:  sickness  in  the  house,  distress 
without;  a  financial  crisis  in  the  affairs  of  the 
school ;  and,  worst  of  all,  a  clerical  campaign  against 
the  schoolmaster,  who  was  accused  of  poisoning  the 
minds  of  his  pupils  with  ''  Darwinism." 

Mr.  Latham  himself  only  laughed  at  the  attacks; 
but  to  his  wife  the  blow  was  a  crushing  one.  His 
tendency  to  say  things  which  she  could  not  under- 
stand had  long  been  a  sore  trial  to  her  gentle  spirit. 
It  could  not  wound  her  vanity,  for  she  had  none; 
but  it  awaked  in  her  a  dim  fear  of  something 
heretical  and  subversive — something  which,  did  a 
higher  power  not  protect  her,  might  undermine  the 
very  foundations  of  her  faith.  She  prayed  earnestly 
to  be  delivered  from  doubt  and  spiritual  temptation ; 
and  it  seemed  to  her  at  last  that  her  prayers  were 
answered;  her  husband  left  off  talking  to  her  of 
disturbing  subjects. 

For  that  matter,  he  was  getting  out  of  the  talking 
habit.  Sometimes,  when  Mrs.  Latham  was  feeling 
more  than  usually  ill  or  depressed,  a  faint,  cold 
doubt  would  come  over  her  whether  he  still  loved 
her  as  he  used  to  do.  Then,  seeing  how  thin  and 
careworn  he  had  grown  of  late,  she  would  reproach 
herself  bitterly  for  wronging  so  good  a  husband  by 
so  unjust  a  thought. 


OLIVE    LATHAM  11 

Later  on,  the  question  that  she  asked  herself  took 
another  form:  Why  had  he  left  off  loving  her? 
Had  she  failed  in  her  duty  as  a  wife,  perhaps,  since 
the  baby  came,  by  being  too  much  a  mother?  Or 
was  fickleness,  indeed,  the  nature  of  menfolk;  and 
had  he  tired  of  her  because  she  was  sick  and  her  good 
looks  were  fading  ? 

She  shed  many  tears  in  secret  during  this  part  of 
her  life.  As  for  him,  he  no  longer  asked  himself 
questions;  they  were  all  asked  and  answered.  On 
his  nature,  which  his  wife  in  her  secret  thoughts  had 
begun  to  call  fickle,  lay  the  curse  of  hopeless  faithful- 
ness. The  ragged  school  was  the  core  of  his  heart ; 
without  it  life  would  be  worth  little  to  him ;  and  he 
knew,  long  before  she  knew  it  herself,  that  in  Mary 
it  had  a  mortal  enemy. 

It  was  all  his  own  fault,  he  told  himself.  Mary, 
poor  soul,  was  in  no  way  to  blame.  She  was  a  good 
woman,  but  she  was  the  wrong  wife  for  him;  and 
he,  with  the  clearer  intellect,  should  have  been  the 
one  to  see.  He  had  made  the  mistake,  and  must 
bear  its  consequences  as  best  he  might;  must  carry 
on  his  work  side  by  side  with  a  home  life  that  was  a 
hindrance,  not  a  help ;  and  make  her  as  nearly  happy 
as  he  could.  Altogether  happy  he  could  scarcely 
make  her ;  some  one  of  his  clerical  detractors  would 
have  been  the  person  to  do  that,  he  thought  bitterly ; 


12  OLIVE    LATHAM 

but  he  could  be  a  kind  and  affectionate  husband  and 
never  let  her  see  what  it  cost  him. 

The  second  child,  a  girl,  was  born  three  years  after 
the  marriage.  When  it  was  a  week  old,  Mr.  Latham 
sat  one  evening  by  his  wife's  bed,  holding  her  hand 
tenderly  in  his  while  he  read  aloud  to  her.  The 
poem  which  she  had  chosen  described  the  emotions 
of  some  pious  lady  tourist  on  seeing  the  Mount  of 
Olives.  The  very  cover  of  the  anthology  that  con- 
tained it  sent  a  shudder  down  his  fastidious  back; 
but  had  the  verse  been  Milton's,  he  could  not  have 
read  it  in  a  more  reverent  and  careful  voice.  He 
was  thinking,  as  he  glanced  over  the  top  of  the  book 
at  his  wife's  delicate  profile :  ''  I  can  understand  the 
poor  thing  not  minding  the  bad  logic,  but  how  can 
she  bear  those  cockney  rhymes  ?" 

"  Alfred,"  she  said  when  he  came  to  the  end;  "  I 
think,  if  you  don't  mind,  I  should  like  to  call  the  baby 
'  Olive.'  " 

He  could  scarcely  restrain  a  movement  of  disgust. 
"  What,  after  this  poem?" 

"  No,  not  exactly  that ;  only  the  word  reminded 
me  of  .  .  .  something  else.  But  if  you  don't  like 
the  name,  we  will  choose  another." 

"  I  like  it  very  much,"  he  answered  gently.  "  It 
reminds  me  of  things,  too." 

She  looked  up  at  him,  smiling  through  tears. 


OLIVE    LATHAM  13 

"Does  it  really?  Oh,  Alfred  dearest,  I'm  so 
glad." 

Her  thin  fingers  began  to  play  nervously  with  the 
stud  of  his  cuff. 

"  It  is  ungrateful  in  me,  when  you  are  always  so 
good  and  kind.  .  .  .  But  ...  I  don't  know  why 
...  I  have  thought,  sometimes,  you  had  for- 
gotten .  .  .  everything  but  the  school.  .  .  .  Do 
you  remember  .  .  .  that  sunset  from  Monte  Oli- 
veto,  and  the  walk  back  to  Florence  in  the 
dark?" 

He  winced  a  little,  but  forebore  to  explain  her 
mistake  to  her ;  and  they  kissed  each  other  across  the 
baby's  head,  thinking,  she  of  their  honeymoon  among 
gray  Tuscan  hills,  he  of  drowned  hopes  and  of  the 
dove  that  returned  not  again. 

Something  over  a  quarter  of  a  century  later,  Mr. 
Latham,  now  the  gray-haired  director  of  Latham's 
Bank  in  Sussex,  drove  his  pony-trap  one  day  to  the 
railway-station  at  Heathbridge,  three  miles  from  his 
house,  to  meet  the  down-train.  It  was  a  fine  after- 
noon of  early  summer,  and  the  hedges  between  which 
he  passed  were  sweet  with  dog-roses  and  honey- 
suckle. For  once,  though  he  was  alone,  the  banker's 
fine  and  scholarly  face  looked  almost  happy. 

The   occasion   was,    indeed,    a    joyful   one:     his 


14  OLIVE    LATHAM 

daughter  Olive  was  coming  home  for  a  holiday. 
For  the  last  seven  years  she  had  been  living  in 
London,  first  learning  sick-nursing  in  hospitals,  and 
later  working  as  a  district  nurse  in  a  Surrey-side 
slum.  As  a  general  rule,  she  came  back  for  two  or 
three  week-ends  each  winter  as  well  as  for  her 
month  in  summer;  but  this  year  pressure  of  work 
had  prevented  small  chance  holidays,  and  it  was  now 
ten  months  since  her  last  visit.  For  weeks  he  had 
been  counting  off  the  days,  like  a  school-boy  at  the 
end  of  term,  telling  himself  every  morning  that 
another  night  had  passed  and  that  she  would  come 
quite  soon. 

Only  things  connected  with  Olive  could  move  him 
so  nowadays.  The  years  had  brought  him  stability, 
if  not  peace ;  and  though  he  sincerely  loved  both  his 
wife  and  his  pretty  younger  daughter,  Jenny,  either 
of  them  might  have  died  without  seriously  disturb- 
ing the  balanced  habit  of  his  mind.  An  excellent 
husband  and  father,  he  had  lived  his  life  and  carried 
his  burden  alone. 

But  Olive  held  a  place  apart.  It  was  to  him  as  if 
the  forsaken  love  of  his  youth,  the  ragged  school, 
had  come  to  life  again.  Her  holiday  visits,  passion- 
ately as  he  looked  forward  to  them,  were  as  much 
pain  as  pleasure  to  him;  so  keen,  through  all  his 
delight,  was  the  sense  of  shame  whenever,  meeting 


OLIVE    LATHAM  15 

her  clear  eyes,  he  asked  himself  what  he  had  done 
with  his  youth. 

The  habitual  cloud  settled  on  his  face  as  the 
thought  came  up  once  more.  The  leisurely  life  of 
a  well-to-do  country  banker  had  not,  in  four-and- 
twenty  years,  rubbed  out  the  stain  left  upon  his 
memory  by  his  desertion  of  the  ragged  school.  He 
had  left  his  first  love,  and  its  ghost  still  haunted  him. 

And  yet,  once  having  made  the  initial  mistake  in 
his  marriage,  what  else  could  he  have  done  ?  After 
Olive  was  born  he  had  held  out  for  two  dreadful 
years ;  had  held  out  against  poverty  and  slander  and 
mean  intrigues  and  Mary's  silent,  gentle,  deadly 
influence ;  but  her  tears  had  broken  his  spirit  at  last. 
If  she  had  ever  quarrelled,  or  complained,  or  opposed 
him  in  any  way,  it  would  have  been  easier  to  stand 
against  her ;  as  a  resigned  and  submissive  victim  she 
had  him  at  her  mercy.  And  yet  he  had  still  clung 
to  the  school. 

Then  the  little  boy,  Alfred,  had  died  of  scarlatina, 
caught,  no  doubt,  from  one  of  the  many  ragamuflins 
who  brought  their  confidences,  their  joys  and  sor- 
rows, to  ''teacher;"  and  Mary  had  sobbed  herself 
into  an  illness.  "  She  has  a  horror  of  the  place  and 
the  school  and  everything  connected  with  this  slum 
work  of  yours,"  the  doctor  told  him.  ''  It's  no  use 
sending  her  to  the  country ;  she'll  only  fret.    If  you 


16  OLIVE    LATHAM 

want  ever  to  see  her  well  and  happy  again,  give  the 
whole  thing  up,  for  a  time,  anyway." 

He  gave  it  up  altogether,  entered  the  bank,  and 
succeeded  in  time  to  his  father's  place.  So  far 
as  his  wife's  health  was  concerned,  however,  the 
sacrifice  proved  of  little  use ;  after  Jenny's  birth  she 
broke  down  entirely,  and  settled  into  a  confirmed 
hypochondriacal  semi-invalid.  Still,  if  not  quite 
happy,  she  was  resigned,  and,  as  always,  sweet-tem- 
pered and  patient.  As  for  him,  he  had  left  off 
struggling  against  his  fate,  which  was,  indeed,  not 
without  compensations.  From  the  point  of  view  of 
his  large  circle  of  acquaintance,  he  had  certainly 
nothing  to  complain  of;  they  regarded  him  as  one 
of  the  rare  and  fortunate  favourites  of  the  gods,  on 
whom  only  blessings  are  showered.  Steadily  pros- 
perous, universally  respected,  a  member  of  the 
Aristotelian  society,  and  the  father  of  two  admi- 
rable daughters,  he  had,  no  doubt,  much  to  be 
thankful  for. 

He  pulled  up  the  pony,  and,  leaning  out  of  the 
trap,  gathered  a  spray  of  wild  rosebuds  for  Olive. 
He  knew  how  she  would  rejoice  in  the  glory  of  these 
Sussex  hedges  after  her  long  toil  in  flowerless  places. 
Yet  the  work  was  of  her  own  choosing;  never  was 
anyone  more  radiantly  happy  in  a  loved  profession, 
more  clearly  the  right  person  in  the  right  place.    Her 


OLIVE    LATHAM  17 

cnoice  of  a  career  was,  at  first,  a  sore  grief  to  the 
timid  mother;  but  Mr.  Latham  insisted  that  no 
pressure  must  be  put  upon  the  girl;  she,  at  least, 
should  go  her  own  way  untrammelled,  and  find  her 
own  vocation.  She  would  probably  do  so,  he  re- 
flected inwardly,  even  were  there  no  father  to  take 
her  part ;  but  this  he  did  not  say  to  Mary.  He  said 
instead :  ''  The  child  will  be  all  right,  and  none  the 
worse  for  seeing  a  bit  of  what  the  world  is  like. 
She's  strong  enough  to  take  the  good  of  it  and  leave 
the  bad ;   it's  not  as  if  it  were  little  Jenny." 

Mrs.  Latham  wisely  refrained  from  further  oppo- 
sition ;  she  had  realized,  perhaps,  that  it  was  seldom 
of  much  use  to  interfere  with  Olive.  The  girl  had 
shown,  from  childhood,  a  placid  evenness  of  temper, 
and  an  equally  placid  determination  to  manage  her 
private  affairs  for  herself.  Starting  for  London  at 
nineteen,  to  become  a  probationer  in  a  children's 
hospital,  she  sweetly  accepted  the  devout  "  Selec- 
tions" and  the  "  Poems  of  Frances  Ridley  Haver- 
gal,"  which  were  her  mother's  parting  gifts;  and 
then,  coming  into  the  study  with  the  gilded  volumes, 
asked  her  father  for  ''  two  of  your  cardboard  cases, 
please,  to  keep  these  pretty  bindings  nice ;  and  some 
books  to  read  when  I  can  get  off.  I  shall  want  only 
quite  a  few,  because  of  course  I  shan't  have  much 
time  at  the  hospital." 


18  OLIVE    LATHAM 

"  Choose  what  you  Hke,"  he  told  her;  and,  with- 
out further  speech,  she  picked  out  half  a  dozen  vol- 
umes. A  glance  at  the  titles  sent  his  eyebrows  up  in 
silent  comment.  Epictetus,  Milton's  Prose,  The 
Apology  of  Socrates  ...  "  Poor  Mary !"  he  said 
to  himself  when  the  door  closed.  He  said  it  again 
now  as  he  laid  the  rosebuds  down  and  touched  up  the 
lazy  pony. 

He  remembered  the  day  when  he  had  first  begun 
to  realize  that  his  elder  daughter,  then  a  child  of 
thirteen,  was,  for  good  or  evil,  a  force  to  be  reckoned 
with.  She  had  electrified  the  quiet  household  by 
walking  in,  perfectly  self-possessed,  with  a  ragged 
and  very  dirty  baby  in  her  arms,  and  the  foul- 
mouthed  female  tramp  from  whom  she  had  taken 
it  following  her  up  the  drive,  vociferously  drunk,  but 
too  much  amazed  to  be  violent.  "  It's  no  use  saying 
bad  words,"  she  had  remarked,  sitting  down  calmly 
in  the  hall  with  her  yelling  prize.  "  You  don't 
deserve  to  have  a  baby  if  you  hold  it  upside  down 
and  make  it  scream.  Go  and  put  your  head  under 
the  pump." 

Mr.  Latham  laughed  to  himself  at  the  remembered 
grotesqueness  of  the  scene;  the  horrified  servants, 
the  frowsy  baby,  the  mother's  bestial  rage  collapsing 
in  damp  and  sodden  humility  under  the  deadly  com- 
mon-sense of  this  small  person  with  the  square-toed 
shoes  and  the  hair  that  would  not  curl. 


OLIVE    LATHAM  19 

But  in  the  middle  of  his  laughter,  his  heart  con- 
tracted at  the  memory  of  the  dreadful  days  last 
winter.  She  was  to  have  spent  Christmas  at  home ; 
and  when  her  letter  came,  he  had  thought  it  was  to 
say  which  train  would  bring  her ;  but  the  postmark 
told  him  all  before  he  broke  the  envelope.  It  was  from 
a  town  in  the  Black  Country  where  a  violent  small- 
pox epidemic  had  broken  out;  she  had  volunteered 
for  work  in  the  temporary  isolation  hospital.  Then, 
for  the  first  time  in  his  life,  Mr.  Latham  had  acted 
upon  an  impulse  of  blind  panic;  he  had  taken  the 
first  train  to  the  place,  with  a  wild  notion  of  telling 
her  he  could  not  spare  her,  of  begging  her  to  give  it 
up,  to  let  someone  else,  someone  less  loved,  less 
desperately  needed,  nurse  the  small-pox  patients. 
He  remembered  the  black  half-hour  of  waiting  in 
a  little,  meagre,  whitewashed  room;  the  gleam 
of  sunshine  that  entered  with  her;  the  splendid 
poise  of  her  head  as  she  came  up  to  him,  tall 
and  straight  in  her  nurse's  uniform,  smelling  of 
disinfectants.  He  had  stammered  some  excuse  for 
coming,  had  sat  talking  of  trifles  for  the  few  minutes 
that  she  could  spare  from  her  work,  and  then  had 
gone  away.  He  dared  not  think  a  cowardly  thought 
in  so  brave  a  presence. 

Now  the  epidemic  was  over,  and  she  was  coming 
home  to  rest  and  to  look  after  her  mother's  health. 


20  OLIVE    LATHAM 

For  a  few  months,  at  any  rate,  the  joy  of  having  her 
near  would  fill  the  empty  place  in  his  Hfe.  Perhaps 
she  might  even  consent  to  settle  down  and  follow  her 
chosen  career  at  home.  A  trained  nurse  was  badly 
wanted  for  the  poor  folk  of  the  district;  and  his 
daughter  had  no  need  to  earn  her  bread. 

As  he  entered  the  station  a  porter  came  up,  touch- 
ing his  cap. 

"  Is  it  true  Miss  Olive  is  coming  home,  sir?" 

''  Yes,  for  a  time.'' 

"  That's  good  news ;  my  old  folks  will  be  glad." 

Mr.  Latham  smiled  as  he  sat  down  to  wait  for  the 
train.  Whether  he  himself  was  liked  or  disliked  by 
his  neighbours  was  unimportant  to  him;  but  the 
popularity  of  his  idol  was  another  matter. 

She  was  certainly  popular.  The  news  of  her 
coming  had  spread  abroad,  and  when  she  stepped  out 
of  the  train,  various  small  boys  and  awkward  lads 
appeared  from  nowhere  in  particular,  all  anxious  to 
carry  her  bag  or  help  her  into  the  pony-trap.  She 
addressed  them  by  their  Christian  names,  and 
inquired  with  interest  after  the  symptoms  of  a 
certain  Jimmy,  who,  so  far  as  Mr.  Latham  could 
gather  from  the  conversation,  appeared  to  have 
lately  endangered  his  health  by  swallowing  a  pin. 

"  And  may  a  profane  outsider  ask  who  is 
Jimmy?"  said  her  father,  as  the  pony-trap  turned  a 


OLIVE    LATHAM  21 

corner,  shutting  out  from  view  the  ecstatic  imps  to 
whom  she  was  still  waving  her  hand. 

"  Jimmy  Bates,  a  very  particular  friend  of  mine. 
Don't  you  remember  the  little  boy  that  tramped  all 
the  way  to  Hurst  bog  and  back  last  summer  to  bring 
me  a  lot  of  very  smelly  duckweed  because  he  had 
seen  me  looking  for  the  ivy-leaved  harebell  in  a  bit 
of  wet  ground,  and  thought  I  liked  '  all  those  slimy 
things'?" 

''  Ah,  I  remember  a  small  adorer  of  yours  with  a 
shock  head  and  a  freckled  nose.  It  is  fortunate  that 
your  satellites  are  only  village  urchins  and  hobble- 
dehoys; one  daughter  with  a  train  of  fashionable 
young  men  is  enough  for  a  plain  man  like  me." 

Olive's  gray  eyes  lit  up  with  amusement. 

"  Poor  old  daddy !  Are  Jenny's  lovers  very  over- 
powering?" 

"  It's  not  the  quality  I  mind,  my  dear ;  it's  the 
quantity.  They're  harmless  youths,  I  think,  most 
of  them;  but  a  continual  procession  of  well-inten- 
tioned puppies  becomes  a  little  wearing  at  times." 

''  It's  no  use,  dad ;  I'm  not  going  to  pity  you. 
It's  your  own  fault  for  marrying  mother;  she  must 
have  been  even  prettier  than  Jenny  when  she  was  a 
girl." 

He  threw  a  covert  glance  at  her,  but  her  eyes 
were  quite  unconscious. 


22  OLIVE    LATHAM 

"  She  was  much  prettier  than  Jenny,"  he  said. 

"  Well,  then,  you  must  put  up  with  having  a  pretty 
daughter,  and  be  thankful  you've  only  one.  Think 
what  your  lot  might  have  been  if  I'd  turned  out  a 
beauty  too." 

"  It's  not  a  point  of  much  importance,  my  dear ; 
but  even  you  strike  me  as  fairly  pleasant  to  look 
at." 

"  Oh,  I'm  well  enough;  just  plain  dog." 

"  And  do  you  think  that  if  you  had  Jenny's  hair 
and  skin  you  would  neglect  your  sick  mother  for 
cavalry  officers  and  young  men  down  for  the  hunting 
season?" 

"Father,"  said  Olive,  suddenly  grave;  "you're 
not  anxious  about  Jenny?" 

"  Anxious  ?  In  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  word, 
not  in  the  least.  Jenny  will  always  swim  on  the  top 
of  the  water  and  always  be  a  model  of  propriety. 
She's  made  that  way.  But  .  .  .  well  yes,  I'm 
sorry  to  see  your  mother's  daughter  grow  exacting 
and  vain,  or  your  sister  idle  and  selfish." 

"  She's  not  really  selfish,  dad ;  she's  young,  and 
mother  has  spoiled  her  a  bit.  Now  tell  me  about 
mother.     Do  you  think  her  any  worse?" 

"  I  don't  quite  know  what  to  think.  The  doctor 
can't  find  much  the  matter  now,  except  weakness; 
but  she's   so   depressed.     You'll  see  for  yourself. 


OLIVE    LATHAM  23 

I'm  glad  you're  home,  for  her  sake  as  well  as  for 
Jemiy's." 

"  And  not  for  your  own,  daddy?" 

He  put  a  hand  on  hers  for  a  moment. 

"  We  won't  talk  about  that,"  he  said,  and  plunged 
into  another  subject. 

''  By  the  way,  your  friend  the  Reverend  Mr. 
Grey  has  arrived,  and  entered  on  his  new  duties 
yesterday.  The  old  rector  waylaid  me  last  week  to 
say  it  was  your  account  of  how  the  young  man  had 
behaved  in  the  small-pox  epidemic  that  had  made 
him  decide  to  try  him,  but  had  I  heard  whether  he 
was  sound  doctrinally?  I  told  him  I  thought  the 
amount  of  soap  and  disinfectants  a  curate  can  get  his 
poor  parishioners  to  use  of  more  importance  than 
the  exact  colour  of  his  theology." 

''  Mr.  Grey  will  agree  with  you  there,  at  any  rate ; 
and  I  am  sure  he  will  be  willing  to  let  Mr.  Wickham 
do  the  preaching  if  he  may  do  the  district-visiting.  I 
doubt  if  he  knows  much  about  theological  questions, 
but  he  knows  how^  to  bandage  a  sore  leg,  for  I've 
seen  him  do  it." 

"  Well,  he'll  be  a  change  after  the  last  curate,  who 
neither  could  nor  would  do  anything." 

"  Wasn't  that  an  aristocratic  young  man  with  a 
retreating  chin  ?" 

"  Yes,  and  a  tendency  to  spout  St.  Augustine,  out 


24  OLIVE    LATHAM 

of  season,  when  we  wanted  to  settle  practical  points 
about  the  town  drains.  It  wasn't  even  as  if  he  really 
knew  any  Latin,  either ;  he  always  got  fogged  in  the 
verbs.  This  new  man  is  a  great  friend  of  yours, 
isn't  he?" 

"Dick  Grey?  One  of  my  best  friends.  I  knew 
him  well  years  before  the  small-pox  time,  when  he 
had  a  London  curacy;  he  used  to  visit  my  patients 
in  Bermondsey." 

''  Your  mother  has  got  hold  of  a  notion,"  Mr. 
Latham  began,  and  broke  off. 

Olive  looked  up  inquiringly. 

"  No,  no,  it  isn't  our  business.  It's  only,  as  you 
are  such  friends  .  .  ." 

"Father,  don't!" 

The  banker  looked  round  at  her  in  wonder.  Her 
face  was  suddenly  white. 

"  Olive?"  he  said,  and  caught  her  hand.  "  Olive, 
darling!" 

"  No,  nothing,  daddy;  only  don't  ever  talk  to  me 
about  things  like  that.  Any  friends  of  mine  you  may 
came  across — I  haven't  many — are  just  friends,  and 
nothing  more." 

"  But,  my  darling,  somebody  will  be  more,  some 
day?" 

She  was  silent,  looking  straight  before  her. 
Presently  she  turned  her  head  and  looked  him  delib- 
erately in  the  face. 


OLIVE    LATHAM  25 

"  And  those  insanitary  cottages ;  did  you  manage 
to  get  the  matter  taken  up?" 

Her  father  drew  in  his  breath  a  Httle;  it  was  as  if 
a  door  had  been  shut  in  his  face.  He  answered, 
after  a  scarcely  perceptible  pause : 

"  Not  yet ;  I  had  the  farmers  against  me.  Per- 
haps, if  Mr.  Grey  will  back  me  up,  I  may  succeed." 

When  the  energetic  Mr.  Grey,  cheerfully  uncon- 
scious of  the  flutter  which  his  Jaeger  clothing  and 
heathen  ways  had  caused  in  the  neighbourhood,  came 
to  pay  his  first  call  at  The  Chestnuts,  he  found  Mrs. 
Latham  walking  up  and  down  the  garden-path, 
leaning  on  her  tall  daughter's  arm.  The  invalid  had 
gained  more  strength  and  energy  within  the  last 
three  days  than  in  the  three  months  before  Olive 
came  home.  The  girl  was  the  tenderest  and  most 
sympathetic  of  nurses;  but  in  such  cases  as  her 
mother's,  her  calm  assumption  that  of  course  her 
patients  could  do  this  or  that  seemed  to  create  in 
them  the  capacity  to  exert  what  little  strength  they 
had.  Hers  was  a  presence  in  which  morbid  fancies 
did  not  thrive. 

Jenny,  as  usual,  was  amusing  herself.  She  had 
gone  to  a  garden  party  at  the  invitation  of  the  local 
magnate,  Lady  Hartfield.  Both  girls  had  been 
asked,  but,  as  one  must  stay  w^ith  the  invalid,  Olive 


26  OLIVE    LATHAM 

had  refused  the  invitation,  somewhat  to  her  father's 
annoyance.  He  thought  it  was  her  turn  to  have  a 
little  pleasure  now. 

"  It's  all  right,  daddy,"  she  had  answered  placidly. 
"  It  amuses  Jenny,  and  it  would  only  bore  me." 

Lady  Hartfield  was  glad  that  it  was  Jenny  who 
accepted.  She  was  fond  of  the  girl,  petted  her,  and 
was  loud  in  her  praise  to  the  eligible  young  men  of 
the  neighbourhood.  "  A  really  charming  girl,  and 
as  good  as  she  is  pretty.  Yes,  the  sister  is  a  good 
girl  too;  wears  thick  boots,  you  know,  and  thinks 
of  nothing  but  slumming  and  nursing  the  poor. 
Very  fine,  of  course,  but  I  prefer  modesty  and  respect 
for  the  feelings  of  one's  elders  to  all  these  exagger- 
ated ways.  There's  no  need  for  a  young  woman  of 
good  family  to  risk  her  life  nursing  small-pox;  but 
it's  true  she  never  had  Jenny's  complexion." 

This  criticism  had  come  round  to  Olive  that  morn- 
ing, and  she  was  repeating  it  to  her  mother  as  the 
curate  approached  them.  Before  she  saw  him  he 
paused  a  moment  to  watch  her  in  her  new  surround- 
ings, and  to  think  how  splendid  she  looked,  support- 
ing the  weaker  woman  with  her  strong  arm,  her 
face  lit  up  with  frank  enjoyment  of  a  joke,  the  sun- 
light shining  on  her  bare  head. 

When  Mr.  Latham's  pony-trap  came  up  the  drive, 
the  girl  had  taken  her  mother  indoors  and  was  sit- 


OLIVE    LATHAM  27 

ting  under  the  big  chestnut-tree  with  her  friend, 
deep  in  a  conversation  on  the  ailments  of  a  certain 
old  woman  in  the  village.  From  that  subject  they 
passed  to  another  interest  which  they  shared  in  com- 
mon, the  habits  and  peculiarities  of  wild  flowers. 
The  curate  put  down  his  teacup  to  drop  suddenly 
on  his  knees  before  the  rockery. 

**  Why,  how  on  earth  did  you  get  the  Dry  as  to 
blossom  in  this  climate?  It's  such  a  difficult 
creature !     What  soil  do  you  use?" 

Jenny,  coming  back  from  her  garden  party, 
happy  in  her  daintiest  summer  finery,  stopped  short 
in  the  path  to  stare  amazedly  at  the  spectacle  of  her 
sister  kneeling  by  the  rockery,  absorbed  in  an  earnest 
discussion  of  Alpine  chickweeds  with  what  seemed 
like  a  cross  between  a  clergyman  and  a  tramp. 

"  What  an  extraordinary  person !"  she  remarked 
when  the  visitor  had  gone.  ''  And  what  a  waistcoat 
to  pay  a  first  call  in !" 

"  My  dear,"  her  father  replied,  "  that  young  man 
has  a  soul  above  clothes.  He's  a  Christian  Socialist, 
whatever  that  may  mean,  so  you  can  scarcely  expect 
him  to  know  much  about  waistcoats." 

"  The  waistcoat  is  all  right,"  Olive  put  in  tran- 
quilly, collecting  the  scattered  tea-things ;  "  it's  only 
that  he  dresses  in  Jaeger.    Lots  of  Socialists  do." 

"  And  how  do  you  come  to  be  so  conversant  with 


28  OLIVE    LATHAM 

the  ways  of  Socialists,  my  dear?"  her  father  asked, 
with  Hfted  eyebrows. 

"  Oh,"  she  answered  carelessly ;  "  I  used  to  go  to 
some  of  their  meetings  in  London.  Jenny,  when 
you  go  upstairs,  shut  your  door  softly,  please; 
mother  has  a  headache." 

She  went  into  the  house,  carrying  the  tea-tray. 
Her  father  stood  looking  after  her  with  a  clouded 
face.  He  was  wishing,  rather  bitterly,  that  he  could 
hope  ever  to  know  anything  at  all  about  this  elder 
girl  of  his. 

"  Father,"  said  Jenny,  taking  off  her  best  hat  and 
affectionately  stroking  its  long  white  ostrich-plumes ; 
"  don't  you  think  it's  a  pity  that  Olive  lets  her  botani- 
cal craze  carry  her  quite  so  far?  She  encouraged 
that  dreadfully  vulgar  young  man  to  stay  much  too 
long,  just  because  he  pretended  to  be  interested  in 
groundsel." 

"  Chickweed,  my  dear;  there's  a  difference  from 
the  botanist's  point  of  view,  if  not  from  the  Jenny 
Wren's." 

''  Well,  chickweed,  if  you  like.  Of  course,  he'd 
say  he  was  interested  in  anything.  And  Lady  Hart- 
field  told  me  this  afternoon  that  he  has  the  most 
extraordinary  reputation.  She  says  he  would  never 
have  got  appointed  if  people  had  known  how  he  has 
been  behaving  in  London :  going  to  strike  meetings, 


OLIVE    LATHAM  29 

and  getting  into  rows  with  the  pohce,  and  all  sorts 
of  things.  Don't  you  think  you'd  better  warn 
Olive?  .  .  ." 

Mr.  Latham's  eyebrows  went  up  again. 

"  My  good  Jenny,  there  is  a  great  deal  of  excellent 
advice  to  be  had  for  nothing  in  this  household.  But 
Olive,  I  observe,  neither  gives  it  to  others  nor  takes 
it  when  it  is  offered  to  herself.  We  all  have  our 
peculiarities.  As  for  the  young  man  in  Jaeger,  I 
would  rather  he  talked  about  chickweed,  of  which 
he  possibly  knows  something,  than,  like  his  pre- 
decessor, about  dogmatic  theology,  of  which  he 
presumably  know's  nothing.  And  since  we  are  in 
the  way  of  good  advice,  let  me  advise  you,  my  dear, 
to  consider  your  sister  a  little  more  and  that  scandal- 
mongering  old  Hartfield  cat  a  little  less.  And  now 
you  had  better  go  in  and  put  on  a  reasonable  frock." 


CHAPTER    II 

Mr.  Latham  had  been  right  in  his  beHef  that 
many  things  would  be  different  when  OHve  came 
home,  but  the  difference  was  not  altogether  of  the 
kind  that  he  had  hoped  for. 

As  to  the  improvement  in  the  mother's  health  and 
spirits,  there  could  be  no  doubt ;  the  invalid,  worn 
down  by  years  of  chronic  weakness  till  she  had  lost 
all  hope  and  almost  all  desire  for  recovery,  began 
to  wake  out  of  her  apathy  of  depression  and  realize 
that  she,  too,  had  a  part  in  the  joys  of  summer.  The 
change  in  Jenny  was  no  less  striking;  she  became 
more  considerate  for  others,  less  wrapped  up  in  her 
own  small  interests;  yet  Olive  had  not  once  sug- 
gested to  her  that  any  change  was  needed ;  she  acted 
upon  her  sister's  weaker  nature,  half  unconsciously, 
by  the  sheer  force  of  her  personality. 

Yet  the  dead  weight  of  disappointment  lay  heavy 
on  her  father.  It  was  not  that  Olive  was  hard ;  her 
gentle  cheerfulness  never  failed;  but  there  was  a 
professional  quality  about  her  sympathy  that  froze 
the  heart  of  the  lonely  man.  How  he  had  longed 
for  her  coming;  how  he  had  waited  and  possessed 
his  soul  in  patience;  how  he  had  assured  himself, 
30 


OLIVE    LATHAM  31 

month  after  month  and  year  after  year,  that  OHve 
would  come  home,  that  OHve  would  understand! 
And  now  that  she  had  come  the  blank  was  greater 
than  before. 

He  had  scarcely  even  tried  to  approach  her;  it 
had  been  hopeless  from  the  beginning.  Two  days 
after  her  return  he  had  taken  her  out  driving  in  the 
pony-trap;  and,  alone  with  her  between  the  sweet 
hedges,  had  given  her,  in  the  shy,  half-reluctant  way 
of  a  man  naturally  reserved  and  long  used  to  silence, 
some  small  hint  of  his  secret  grief.  She  had  not 
wounded  him  by  any  tactlessness;  she  had  listened 
with  grave  attention,  with  respectful  sympathy — in 
short,  with  the  entirely  admirable  and  entirely  imper- 
sonal bedside  manner  of  the  well-trained  sick-nurse. 
The  next  morning,  coming  down  to  breakfast,  he 
had  found  small  pepsine  tablets  laid  beside  his  plate. 
And  there  his  attempt  to  establish  confidential  rela- 
tions with  her  had  ended. 

The  Jaeger-clad  curate,  for  his  part,  devoted  him- 
self to  the  physical  training  of  the  village  boys,  and 
lived  in  hope.  He  had  realized  long  ago  that  Olive 
Latham  would  not  be  an  easy  bride  to  win ;  and  he 
had  kept  his  personal  hope  in  the  background,  setting 
himself  to  conquer  slowly,  first  her  interest,  then  her 
respect,  and  in  time  her  friendship.  Whether  her 
love  would  ever  follow  or  not,  he  had  at  least  gained 


32  OLIVE    LATHAM 

these.  After  three  years  of  steady  effort,  he  had 
still  not  converted  her  to  Socialism;  her  intellect, 
stubborn  and  thorough,  moved  slov^^ly,  and  her 
nature  was  not  prone  to  quick  enthusiasms.  But 
she  had  read  and  pondered  deeply  the  books  with 
which  he  had  supplied  her,  and  they  had  set  her 
thinking.  Now,  when  alone  with  him,  she  would 
enter  upon  serious  discussions,  weighing  rival 
theories  with  conscientious  and  pathetically  ignorant 
criticism.  "  She  won't  be  easy  to  convert,"  he  had 
said  to  himself  at  the  beginning  of  their  intimacy; 
''  but  she'll  be  worth  the  trouble."  After  three  years 
he  was  still  encouraging  himself  with  the  same 
thought. 

He  had  come  down  to  Sussex  resolved  to  put  off 
indefinitely  any  intrusion  of  his  personal  feelings  and 
hopes  into  their  friendship.  In  the  old  Bermondsey 
days  he  once  tried  to  speak,  and,  like  her  father, 
had  come  up  against  a  blank  wall.  She  had  been 
very  sympathetic;  Olive  was  always  sympathetic; 
but  she  had  not  succeeded  in  finding  out  that  his 
clumsy  and  hesitating  avowal  meant  anything  more 
than  an  assurance  of  his  brotherly  affection  and 
interest  in  her  work.  It  occurred  to  her  that  there 
was  scarcely  any  need  to  tell  her  of  that,  seeing  that 
she  had  no  doubt  of  it;  Olive  had  always  been 
instinctively  repelled  by  any  forcing  into  speech  of 


OLIVE    LATHAM  33 

things  which  one  can  take  for  granted.  Then  she 
remembere'd  that  he  had  spent  most  of  the  last  night 
in  protecting  a  family  of  terrified  children  from  the 
violence  of  a  drunken  father ;  and  reflected  that  his 
work  must  be  telling  upon  him,  or  he  would  not 
stammer  and  turn  white  for  nothing.  She  assured 
him,  therefore,  in  her  soothing  and  even  voice,  that 
she  valued  and  returned  his  friendship,  and  that  cer- 
tainly she  would  call  him  ''  Dick"  if  he  preferred  it; 
and  then,  in  the  same  tone,  inquired  whether  he  was 
careful  to  change  his  socks  when  they  got  wet. 

He  had  not  repeated  his  indiscretion.  "  One 
might  as  well  make  love  to  Britomart,"  he  had  said 
to  himself,  with  angry  and  humorous  despair.  And, 
indeed,  her  stupidity  in  this  matter  was  an  impregna- 
ble fortress. 

When  the  epidemic  broke  out,  he  had  applied  for 
a  "  holiday  post"  in  the  stricken  town,  and  cheerfully 
exchanged  with  a  nervous  curate  who  was  glad  to 
get  away.  Hard  work  and  the  excitement  of  fight- 
ing the  pestilence  were  congenial  to  his  natural  tem- 
per; but  the  underlying  motive  had  been  to  keep 
near  Olive  while  the  danger  lasted.  Now  that  she 
had  come  into  smooth  water,  he  also  felt  the  need  of 
less  strenuous  work  for  a  time.  But,  he  told  him- 
self, he  would  have  to  be  content  with  the  joy  of 
her  presence,  with  the  encouragement  of  her  help,  and 

3 


34  OLIVE    LATHAM 

leave  her  undisturbed  in  her  magnificent  and  ab- 
surd pigheadedness.  Short  of  a  sledge-hammer,  it 
seemed,  nothing  would  make  her  understand  that  a 
man  desired  her  in  marriage;  and  if  she  did  arrive 
at  realizing  what  he  meant,  the  chances  were  that 
she  would  take  it  either  as  an  insult  or  as  a  sign  of 
incipient  general  paralysis. 

But  silence  in  a  roaring  wilderness  of  factories  and 
slums,  in  daily,  hourly  contact  with  squalid  tragedy, 
had  been  an  easier  thing  than  silence  between  honey- 
suckle hedges  in  a  Sussex  June.  The  curate's  reso- 
lution held  out  for  three  interminable  weeks.  Then, 
meeting  her  accidentally  in  the  cottage  of  a  bed- 
ridden villager,  he  walked  with  her  across  the  fields 
in  a  golden  afternoon,  talking  briskly  of  parish 
details,  his  head  turned  away. 

They  came  to  a  stile  where  the  footpaths  crossed ; 
one,  a  straight  white  thread,  running  through  green 
barley-fields,  the  other  winding  round  in  shadow 
beside  a  little  copse.  Close  by,  a  gap  in  the  hedge 
showed  a  glimpse  into  the  green  shade  of  the  wood ; 
a  mossy  dell,  a  thicket  of  gnarled  holly-scrub,  a  few 
tall  foxgloves,  stately,  with  drooping  bells.  The 
curate  held  out  his  hand. 

''  Good-bye;   our  roads  part  here,  I  suppose." 

"  Are  you  in  a  hurry?  I'm  going  to  sit  and  rest 
a  bit  in  the  wood;  I've  been  running  about  all  day." 


OLIVE    LATHAM  35 

She  clambered  through  the  gap  and  sat  down  on 
a  felled  tree  at  the  edge  of  the  dell.  The  curate 
stood  looking  at  her,  his  hand  clenched  on  the  stile. 
"If  I  go  in  there,"  he  thought,  "  I  shall  make  an 
ass  of  myself,  and  she'll  despise  me  for  it." 

"Must  you  go?"  she  said  absently;  "I'm  so 
sorry." 

She  pulled  a  trail  of  flowering  honeysuckle 
towards  her,  and  drew  the  ivory  blossoms  across 
her  face,  shutting  her  eyes.  The  curate  had  still 
not  moved.  "  I  shall  make  an  ass  of  myself,"  he 
thought  again.  "  She  cares  more  for  the  scent  of 
a  bit  of  honeysuckle  than  for  all  the  lovers  under 
the  sun." 

"  I  must  go,"  he  said  hoarsely. 

Her  lips  parted  in  a  smile  at  the  soft  touch  of  the 
flower,  and  he  saw  that  she  had  forgotten  his  exist- 
ence. He  turned  away,  setting  his  teeth;  then,  in 
quick  anger,  jumped  through  the  gap  and  came  up 
to  her. 

"  Olive,"  he  said,  and  pulled  the  spray  from  her 
hand.    "  Olive  .  .  ." 

She  raised  her  head;  first  merely  startled,  then 
with  quick  sympathy. 

"  Dick!    Why,  Dick,  what  is  it?" 

The  man  was  shaking  with  helpless  rage. 

"  Let  your  green  stuff  alone  for  a  minute !     Do 


36  OLIVE    LATHAM 

you  think  I  can't  see  you  don't  care  a  hang  for  me, 
without  your  throwing  it  in  my  face  Hke  that  ?  Oh, 
one  might  as  well  fall  in  love  with  the  foxglove 
there ;  you're  like  a  sexless  water-spirit !" 

"  Dick !"  she  said  again,  and  rose,  laying  a  cool 
hand  on  his.     He  jerked  it  off. 

"  Look  here,  you  needn't  feel  my  pulse ;  I've  not 
got  small-pox.  And  I'm  not  off  my  head,  either. 
I'm  simply  a  poor  devil  of  a  man  that's  been  fooling 
about  for  three  years  after  a  girl  who's  not  human 
enough  to  know  when  to  keep  her  hands  off !" 

He  sat  down  suddenly,  shading  his  face  with  an 
unsteady  hand. 

"  I  beg  your  pardon,  Olive ;  I  know  you  meant 
kindly,  but  you  are  so  awfully  dense.  Any  other 
woman  would  find  out  if  she  was  hurting  a  man  like 
that." 

He  picked  another  spray  of  honeysuckle  and  held 
it  out  to  her,  biting  his  lip. 

*'  I'm  sorry  I  spoiled  your  flower.  It  wasn't 
manners;  but,  you  see,  it's  not  altogether  pleasant 
to  be  dragged  at  the  tail  of  Britomart's  horse,  or 
even  at  the  apron-strings  of  her  uniform." 

She  had  drawn  back  a  step,  and  was  standing 
quite  still,  facing  him.  His  eyes  fell  under  her  clear 
gaze,  and  the  honeysuckle  dropped  from  his  fingers. 

"  Dick,  why  didn't  you  tell  me  ?     I  never  guessed. 


OLIVE    LATHAM  37 

Indeed,  I  never  guessed.  Why  didn't  you  tell  me 
before?" 

He  laughed. 

"  I  did  try,  my  dear,  two  years  ago ;  but  you 
never  even  found  out  w^hat  I  was  talking  about. 
Of  course  you  never  guessed;  if  you  could  guess 
things  of  that  sort,  you  wouldn't  be  you.  There's 
no  need  to  look  so  unhappy;  I  know  what  you're 
going  to  say.  You  don't  care  about  me.  Well,  it 
doesn't  matter;  I  care  enough  about  you  to  go  on 
waiting  indefinitely — twenty  years,  if  you  like — just 
on  the  chance  ..." 

"  But,  Dick,  there  isn't  any  chance." 

His  voice  dropped. 

"  Are  you  quite  sure  of  that  ?  Quite  sure  ?  We've 
been  good  friends  always ;  I  thought,  perhaps,  some 
day  .  .  ." 

"No,  no!"  she  interrupted  in  distress;  "it's  not 
that !"  She  stood  still  a  moment,  her  eyes  fixed  on 
the  ground,  then  sat  down  beside  him  on  the  tree- 
trunk.  "  You  don't  understand.  I'd  have  told  you 
before,  if  I'd  only  guessed.     There's  another  man." 

He  drew  in  his  breath  with  a  gasp.  Britomart; 
and  another  man.  .  .  . 

"  Another  man  .  .  ."  he  repeated.  "  You  mean 
you're  going  to  marry  him?" 

She  paused  again  before  answering. 


38  OLIVE    LATHAM 

*'  We  are  engaged.  I  shan't  marry  anyone 
else." 

The  curate  sat  digging  his  stick  into  the  moss. 
After  some  time  he  rose  and  said  huskily : 

"  I'd  better  clear  out ;  good-bye." 

Then  he  saw  that  Olive  was  in  tears.  The  weak- 
ness was  so  alien  to  his  whole  conception  of  her 
that  the  sight  of  it  startled  him  out  of  his  self-pity, 

''Don't!"  he  said  miserably;  ''don't!  I've  been 
a  selfish  idiot  and  upset  you.     I  .  .  ." 

He  stopped  and  tried  for  words,  but  found  noth- 
ing better  than  a  lame :  "  I  wish  you  every  happi- 
ness." 

She  seemed  to  put  the  thought  away  from  her, 
together  with  her  momentary  failure  of  will. 

"  Happiness  is  scarcely  the  question  at  issue  for 
me,"  she  answered,  and  brushed  the  tears  aside.  "  I 
am  very  sorry  to  have  hurt  you  so;  it  seems  as  if 
no  one  could  move  a  step  in  life  without  hurting 
other  people.  It  will  hurt  my  father  horribly;  but 
I  can't  help  it." 

She  put  one  hand  across  her  eyes.  She  was 
conscious  of  an  immense  fatigue  and  difficulty  in 
finding  words  to  explain. 

"  We  have  been  engaged  since  last  autumn. 
You're  the  first  person  I  have  told.  My  people  will 
have  to  know  some  time,  but  I  must  keep  it  from 


OLIVE    LATHAM  39 

them  as  long  as  I  can.  It's  all  so  black  and  hopeless, 
and  they'll  never  understand — never.  And  then 
mother  will  cry;  I  can't  face  it  yet.  I  have  to  get 
accustomed  myself  .  .  ." 

She  stared  before  her  silently.  The  curate  sat 
down  again. 

"  Can't  one  do  anything  to  help  you  ?  What  is 
the  trouble?     You  .  .  .  care  for  him,  don't  you?" 

"Oh,  it's  not  for  want  of  caring!  If  I  didn't 
care  ..." 

She  looked  up. 

"  I  wonder,  will  you  understand?  I  know  your 
Socialism  is  not  the  kind  that's  all  talk.  You  see, 
he's  a  Russian.  You  know  what  that  means,  when 
a  man  is  worth  anything." 

"  A  Russian  .  .  ."  the  curate  repeated  blankly. 
Then  he  understood.    "  What,  a  Nihilist?" 

"  Nihilist,  if  you  like.  It's  a  ridiculous  name,  of 
course.  In  Russia  nowadays  it  simply  means  a 
person  who  has  the  wrong  opinions." 

"  And  he  is  living  here?    A  refugee?" 

"  No ;  he  was  over  here  for  a  year,  taking  plans 
of  English  machinery  for  the  firm  he  works  for  in 
St.  Petersburg.  He  has  gone  back  now ;  and  I  never 
know  .  .  ."  She  raised  haunted  eyes  to  his  face. 
"  They  made  no  difficulty  about  letting  him  come 
over  and  go  back ;  but  he  is  under  police  supervision 


40  OLIVE    LATHAM 

still.  They  count  it  a  great  favour  to  let  him  live 
in  St.  Petersburg  at  all,  and  they  may  take  some 
fancy  into  their  heads  at  any  moment.  It's  like 
living  over  a  black  pit." 

"  But  is  he  not  actually  proscribed?" 

'*  Not  now,  or  I  shouldn't  have  told  you  about 
him.  He  has  had  two  years  in  prison,  and  come 
out  with  diseased  lungs  and  gray  hair.  He's  only 
six  years  older  than  I  am.  The  next  imprisonment 
will  kill  him.  Both  lungs  are  affected;  you  know, 
their  prisons  are  full  of  phthisis  germs." 

Her  voice  shook  a  little,  and  the  sound  caught  the 
hearer  by  the  throat.  At  this  moment  his  sympathy 
was  quite  free  from  any  selfish  grief  for  the  loss  of 
his  own  hopes. 

"  It's  lucky  that  you  have  courage ;  you  have 
chosen  a  hard  patch  to  hoe,"  he  said  softly. 

She  shook  her  head. 

"  I  have  less  courage  than  you  think,  and  I  had  no 
choice." 

"  May  I  know  his  name?" 

"  Vladimir  Damarov.  He  is  only  half  Rus- 
sian; there's  Italian  blood  in  him,  and  Danish  as 
well." 

"Damarov?"  the  curate  repeated.  "Damarov? 
Ah,  and  models  of  machinery.     Of  course." 

She  looked  up  quickly. 


OLIVE    LATHAM  41 

**  Do  you  know  him?" 

"  By  sight,  not  personally.  My  old  chum  Burney 
— ^you  know,  Tom  Burney  the  painter — met  him 
somewhere  in  London,  and  went  crazy  to  get  a 
sketch  of  his  head.  He  got  a  ticket  for  the  opening 
of  the  Industrial  Exhibition  just  to  have  a  chance 
of  seeing  him  again,  and  made  me  go  with  him,  so 
that  he  could  pretend  to  be  talking  to  me  while  he 
sketched.  Didn't  you  see  the  pastel  he  did?  Ah, 
yes,  you  missed  the  winter  shows,  over  the  small- 
pox. It  was  one  of  Burney's  best  things.  He 
called  it :   '  A  Head  of  Lucifer.'  " 

They  sat  talking  quietly,  confidentially.  For 
once  in  her  life  Olive  had  forgotten  to  be  consid- 
erate, and,  abandoning  herself  to  the  relief  of 
breaking  silence  at  last,  talked  of  her  lover  and  his 
wrongs,  of  his  ruined  health  and  wasted  gifts,  with- 
out thinking  how  much  she  might  be  hurting  her 
listener.  As  for  Dick,  he  ground  his  teeth  a  little 
once  or  twice  when  her  voice  lingered  unconsciously 
on  Vladimir's  name;  but  the  story  was,  indeed, 
such  as  would  make  a  man  forget  to  be  jealous. 

Vladimir  Damarov,  she  told  him,  came  of  a  class 
peculiar  to  Russia :  that  petty  rural  nobility  which, 
after  generations  of  idleness,  found  itself,  on  the 
emancipation  of  the  serfs,  suddenly  confronted  with 
the  necessity  of  earning  its  bread.     Starting  in  life 


42  OLIVE    LATHAM 

with  a  talent  for  modelling  and  drawing  and  a  pas- 
sionate bent  towards  plastic  art,  he  at  first  intended 
to  become  a  sculptor;  but  while  still  very  young  he 
fell  under  the  personal  influence  of  one  Karol  Sla- 
vinski,  a  Polish  medical  student,  who,  though  but 
two  years  older  than  himself,  was  already  deeply 
implicated  in  the  revolutionary  movement. 

With  this  student  lived  his  sister  Wanda,  a  girl 
of  twenty,  a  conspirator,  like  her  brother.  They 
belonged  to  one  of  the  ''  doomed  families"  of 
Poland;  the  families  in  which  each  successive  gen- 
eration contributes  its  share  to  the  national  martyr- 
ology.  The  brother  and  sister  had  not  become 
rebels;  they  had  been  born  so.  The  thing  was  a 
matter  of  course,  simply  because  their  name  was 
Slavinski. 

Vladimir  had  gradually  become  their  close  friend 
and  helper,  and  at  twenty-two  had  betrothed  him- 
self to  Wanda.  Then,  when  her  brother  had  just 
taken  his  degree  in  medicine,  the  police  had  swooped 
down  and  arrested  all  three.  After  two  years  of 
solitary  confinement  "  on  suspicion"  Vladimir  had 
been  let  out  because  nothing  could  be  proved  against 
him,  and  had  been  given  to  understand  that  he  was 
"  very  fortunate  in  having  for  friends  old  hands 
who  remembered  to  burn  their  papers."  Karol 
Slavinski,   against   whom   a   good   deal   had   been 


OLIVE    LATHAM  43 

proved,  was  then  on  his  way  to  the  Siberian  convict- 
station  of  Akatui  with  a  sentence  of  four  years' 
penal  servitude.  Of  Wanda  there  was  no  news  at 
all.  During  the  first  year  and  a  half  she  had 
written  home  from  time  to  time;  then  the  letters 
had  stopped,  and  her  friends  were  unable  to  find  out 
whether  she  was  alive  or  dead. 

Vladimir  spent  four  months  in  frantic  efforts  to 
find  out  the  truth ;  bribing  petty  ofHcials,  imploring 
the  police,  petitioning  high  authorities  for  news, 
and  receiving  only  evasive  or  contradictory  answers. 
Then  the  hushed-up  story  leaked  out  bit  by  bit. 
Wanda  had  been  a  pretty  girl,  and  a  new  goaler, 
appointed  during  her  second  year  in  the  prison,  had 
an  eye  for  pretty  girls.  No  actual  outrage  had  been 
committed ;  but  the  girl  had  not  dared  to  sleep,  and 
her  nerves  had  broken  down  under  the  strain  of 
watching  and  nightly  dread.  She  had  succeeded, 
evidently  with  some  difiliculty  and  after  several 
failures,  iq  cutting  her  throat  with  a  bit  of  glass. 
Since  then  Vladimir,  with  what  remained  to  him  of 
lungs  and  nerves,  had  earned  his  living  by  designing 
models  of  machinery,  always  under  police  super- 
vision. 

"  And  the  girl's  brother?"  Dick  asked. 

"  He  was  amnestied  when  he  had  served  half  of 
his  sentence,  and  is  now  practising  as  a  doctor  in 


44  OLIVE    LATHAM 

Russian  Poland.  It  is  considered  an  extraordinary 
example  of  clemency  that  they  allowed  him  to  come 
back  from  Siberia  at  all,  but  he  has  relatives  in  high 
positions.  He  very  seldom  gets  permission  to  visit 
St.  Petersburg;  besides,  he  and  Volodya  are  both 
poor,  so  they  can't  meet  often;  but  they  are  close 
friends." 

A  church  clock  struck  the  hour.  Olive  came  back 
to  daily  life  with  a  start. 

"  Six  already!    I  must  get  back  to  mother." 

"  And  I  shall  be  late  for  choir-practice.  Your 
mother  promised  to  lend  us  a  volume  of  old  hymn- 
tunes;  I  will  walk  back  with  you  and  fetch  it." 

At  the  garden-gate  they  met  the  postman  with  a 
letter  in  his  hand. 

"  For  you.  Miss  Olive." 

Her  face  lit  up  at  the  sight  of  the  envelope ;  and 
before  Dick  saw  the  double-headed  eagle  on  the 
postage-stamp,  he  knew  from  where  the  letter  came. 
A  sudden  gust  of  fierce  resentment  swept  over  him ; 
it  was  so  hateful  to  think  of  her  flinging  her  bright 
youth  into  this  bottomless  pit. 

"  I'll  fetch  the  hymns,"  he  said,  and  went  into  the 
house,  leaving  her  to  read  her  letter  alone. 

Coming  out  with  the  hymn-book,  he  walked 
briskly  towards  the  gate,  and  passed  the  big  chest- 
nut-tree   without    stopping.     Olive    was    standing 


OLIVE    LATHAM  45 

under  the  tree,  holding  the  open  letter  in  her  hand, 
but  not  reading.  She  made  no  movement  at  the 
sound  of  his  footstep  on  the  gravel,  and  he  quick- 
ened his  pace. 

''A  love-letter,"  he  thought.  '*  Why  should  I 
disturb  her?" 

A  moment  later  she  came  running  after  him  down 
the  road. 

''  Dick !    Stop !    I  want  to  speak  to  you." 

One  glance  at  her  face  showed  him  that  the  letter 
had  brought  her  bad  news. 

"  My  dear,  what  is  it?    Not  .  .  ." 

'*  No,  no,  not  arrested ;  but  he's  very  ill.  It's 
pleurisy.  The  letter  is  not  from  him;  it's  from  a 
friend  of  his  who  thought  I  ought  to  know.  I  must 
go  to  him  at  once." 

"To  St.  Petersburg?" 

"  Yes,  to  nurse  him.  Take  a  telegram  to  the 
post-office  for  me,  will  you?  There's  the  address. 
Ah,  no,  that's  in  Russian.  I'll  write  it  out.  Say: 
*  Coming  first  train.'  You  can  put  it  in  French. 
Father  will  have  to  get  me  money  from  the  bank. 
I  got  my  passport  ready  some  time  ago,  in  case  of 
wanting  it." 

"  But  what  help  can  you  be  out  there,  without  the 
language  of  the  country  ?" 

"  I  know  a  little  of  the  language ;  I've  been  learn- 


46  OLIVE    LATHAM 

ing  it  for  some  time.  I  must  go  in  and  explain  to 
father.  .  .  ." 

^' What,  everything?" 

"  No,  nothing  of  all  that ;  I  can't  tell  them  about 
it  now.  Only  that  I'm  called  to  Russia  to  nurse  a 
friend,  and  that  I  must  go  at  once.  There's  the 
address  for  the  telegram.  Good-bye,  dear  Dick;  I 
must  go  in." 

"  It's  not  good-bye ;  I'll  look  up  trains,  and  run  in 
at  nine  this  evening  to  see  v^^hat  I  can  do  about 
luggage  and  so  on.  I'm  a  good  hand  at  packing, 
you  knov^.    I  .  .  ." 

He  caught  hold  of  her  hand,  kissed  it  suddenly, 
and  v^ent  away  without  finishing  the  sentence. 


CHAPTER    III 

Olive  got  out  of  the  train  on  to  a  crowded  plat- 
form. Her  first  impressions  were  of  stifling  heat, 
a  faint,  sickly  smell,  a  crowd  of  men  running  about 
and  obeying  unintelligible  orders,  and  the  domi- 
nating presence  of  a  stolid  figure  in  blue. 

As  she  stood  practising  her  carefully-learned  Rus- 
sian phrases  upon  porters  who  all  talked  together, 
a  deep  chest  voice  behind  her  asked:  "Miss 
Latham?" 

A  big  man  with  a  tawny  beard  was  holding  out 
a  hand  to  her. 

"  I  am  Dr.  Slavinski.  Volodya  asked  me  to  meet 
you.    May  I  have  your  luggage-ticket?" 

She  waited  till  they  drove  away  from  the  station 
to  ask : 

''How  is  Volodya?" 

"  Rather  a  high  temperature  to-day ;  but  that 
may  be  excitement  because  you  are  coming.  It's  a 
fairly  bad  attack,  but  I've  seen  him  worse." 

"  Have  you  had  a  nurse?" 

"  Yes ;  but  he  disliked  her,  and  I  dismissed  her 
yesterday.     I  am  glad  you  have  come." 

"  I  didn't  know  you  were  in  St.  Petersburg." 

47 


48  OLIVE    LATHAM 

'*  I  came  yesterday ;  I  couldn't  get  a  pass  before. 
Luckily  I  have  an  uncle  who  is  a  big  official  in  the 
Ministry  of  Roads  and  Railways  here,  and  he  gets 
me  a  few  days'  permit  every  now  and  then." 

"  You  live  in  one  of  the  Polish  factory  towns, 
don't  you?" 

"  I  was  living  in  Lodz  till  a  few  months  ago ;  but 
they  turned  me  out  as  a  suspect,  because  the  Socialist 
movement  is  so  strong  there.  Lately  I've  been 
kicking  about  the  world  again,  more  or  less." 

He  spoke  English  fluently,  though  with  a  strong 
foreign  accent,  and  with  the  lazy,  sing-song  inflec- 
tion that  marks  the  Lithuanian.  He  was  evidently  a 
conservative  person,  for  the  years  that  he  had  spent, 
at  various  periods  of  his  life,  in  "  kicking  about  the 
world,"  had  not  cured  him  of  the  Polish  trick  of 
accentuating  his  words  on  the  penultimate  syllable. 

"  I  don't  think  there  is  immediate  danger,"  he 
added  presently ;  *'  but  he  will  need  very  careful 
nursing  for  some  time.  He  had  been  getting  badly 
run  down  before  the  pleurisy  began." 

They  talked  for  a  few  minutes  of  the  patient* s 
symptoms. 

"How  did  he  get  it?" 

"  Catching  a  chill,  as  usual.  It  is  difficult  to 
avoid  in  this  climate;  and  he  is  careless,  especially 
when  these  fits  of  depression  come  on." 


OLIVE    LATHAM  49 

"  Is  he  depressed  ?  I  mean,  more  depressed  than 
usual?" 

''  Yes,  and  going  back  over  dead  things  that  are 
better  forgotten.  That's  why  you  can  be  of  so  much 
help  if  you  have  steady  nerves;  you  belong  to  his 
future,  not  his  past.  You  don't  lose  your  head 
easily,  do  you  ?" 

''  I  never  have  done  yet.  I  might,  if  there  were 
sufficient  cause." 

Dr.  Slavinski  fixed  his  eyes  on  the  broad  back 
of  the  driver,  which  shut  out  the  view  in  front. 
After  a  moment  he  said : 

'*  You  have  come  into  a  country  where  one  is 
never  safe  from  sufficient  cause.  Anything  may 
happen  at  any  moment.  It  is  not  likely,  but  it  is 
always  possible.  Try  to  remember  that  Volodya's 
one  chance  of  ever  having  decent  health  or  nerves 
again  depends  on  you.  There's  one  thing  more  I 
want  to  say  to  you.  In  this  country  you  are  always 
liable  to  come  across  ugly  things.  Whatever  you 
see,  don't  cry,  and  don't  lose  your  temper.  It  never 
does  any  good  here." 

"  I  don't  remember  crying  more  than  twice  since 
I  was  a  child,  and  I  very  seldom  lose  my  temper." 

He  looked  her  over  gravely  at  that.  She, 
absorbed  in  her  lover  and  his  symptoms,  had  all 
this  time  thought  of  the  man  beside  her  only  in  his 

4 


50  OLIVE    LATHAM 

capacity  of  doctor;  but  now  she  became  suddenly 
conscious  that  the  big  creature  was  taking  her 
measure  in  a  critical,  observant  way  which  might 
have  been  embarrassing  but  that  it  was  so  imper- 
sonal. 

"  That  is  good,"  he  said,  slowly  withdrawing  the 
examining  gaze.  "  And  don't  get  frightened  with- 
out cause.  I  will  let  you  know  honestly  if  I  think 
there  is  any  real  ground  for  anxiety." 

"  You  mean,  about  his  health  ?" 

"  About  that,  or  anything  else." 

Reaching  the  house  they  found  the  patient  in  a 
state  of  feverish  excitement,  with  dangerously 
bright  eyes  and  a  hectic  spot  on  each  cheek.  Olive's 
trained  eyes  saw  at  a  glance  that  he  was  in  pain  and 
savagely  trying  to  hide  it. 

He  persisted  in  assuring  her,  in  a  weak,  strained 
voice,  that  he  had  never  felt  better  in  his  life,  and 
that  his  whole  illness  was  "  one  of  old  Karol's 
cranks." 

"  You  know,  a  man  doesn't  get  a  chance  to  say  his 
soul  is  his  own  where  Karol  is;  one  might  as  well 
argue  with  a  steam-roller.  I  was  beginning  to  think 
I  should  never  hear  of  him  again,  so  I  wrote  and 
said  I  was  dying,  and  yesterday  morning  he  turns 
up,  more  like  a  bear  than  ever.  Now,  of  course, 
he's  going  to  hold  me  to  it.     But  for  you  to  come 


OLIVE    LATHAM  51 

all  this  way!  You'll  have  to  learn  not  to  take  me 
and  my  lungs  too  seriously — won't  she,  Karol  ?" 

Olive  looked  round.  Karol  had  slipped  silently 
out  of  the  room  and  shut  the  door  without  a  sound, 
leaving  them  alone  together.  Vladimir  seized  her 
hands,  dragged  her  to  him,  and  began  to  kiss  her 
violently,  murmuring  broken,  passionate  phrases. 
She  drew  herself  away. 

"  Listen,  Volodya ;  if  you  get  excited  I  shall  go 
away.  I'll  sit  by  you  if  you  won't  talk ;  and  if  your 
chest  is  hurting  you  much  you  may  have  another 
poultice." 

"  Nothing  hurts  me,  sweetheart,  when  I  have  you 
to  look  at;  but  I  may  as  well  have  the  poultice,  all 
the  same." 

She  gave  him  what  physical  relief  she  could,  and 
then  sat  still,  her  hand  in  his.  He  lay  with  com- 
pressed lips,  and  hands  tightly  clenched  on  hers; 
he  was  evidently  suffering  acutely.  After  a  little 
while  he  began  to  talk  again,  hurriedly,  confusedly, 
asking  interminable  questions,  and  running  on  with- 
out waiting  to  have  them  answered.  His  tem- 
perature was  rising,  and  he  was  beginning  to 
wander.  She  released  her  hand  gently,  and  went 
out  of  the  room  to  look  for  Karol. 

She  found  him  reading  a  medical  book  in  the  little 
sitting-room,  with  his  long  legs  tucked  away  under 


52  OLIVE    LATHAM 

the  table,  and  one  hand  thrust  into  a  tow-coloured 
thatch  of  hair.  He  was  really  not  very  much  bigger 
than  other  people ;  but  the  slow  deliberateness  of  his 
movements,  together  with  a  certain  massive  set  of 
head  and  shoulders,  made  him  look,  at  times,  pre- 
posterously large.  His  whole  appearance  was  in 
such  striking  contrast  to  the  high-strung,  neurotic, 
over-refined  physical  type  which  she  had  associated 
with  the  Poles,  that  she  noticed  it  even  in  the  midst 
of  her  anxiety.  "  Like  a  Norse  god,  a  little 
unfinished,"  she  thought. 

"  Ah,"  he  said,  looking  up ;  "I  was  just  going  to 
call  you  to  supper.    It  is  nearly  ready." 

"Will  you  come  and  look  at  Volodya,  please; 
I  think  he  ought  to  have  a  sedative." 

When  at  last  they  had  got  the  sick  man  to  sleep, 
Karol  took  her  into  the  next  room,  laid  the  table, 
and  made  her  bed  while  she  ate. 

''  I  sit  up  to-night,"  he  said ;  "  and  you  to-mor- 
row. The  maid  sleeps  out,  but  the  porter's  wife  is 
on  the  ground-floor.  She's  a  kindly  woman,  and 
worships  Volodya  because  he  was  good  to  her  child 
when  it  was  ill  last  year.  She'll  do  anything  for 
you.  The  maid  comes  at  eight  and  gets  breakfast 
ready." 

She  soon  slipped  into  a  daily  routine  of  nursing. 
The  actual  attack  was  over  in  a  few  days,  but  it  left 


OLIVE    LATHAM  53 

the  patient  so  weak  and  exhausted  that  great  care 
was  needed  for  some  time.  Karol  stayed  with  them 
only  four  days;  he  was  a  man  on  whose  shoulders 
many  responsibilities  rested,  and  it  had  been  a 
matter  of  great  difficulty  for  him  to  come  at  all. 
She  was  anxious  to  get  her  patient  out  of  the  hot, 
unhealthy  town  as  soon  as  possible,  but  Karol 
advised  her  not  to  let  him  travel  for  three  weeks,  as 
the  journey  would  be  a  very  fatiguing  one. 

It  had  been  arranged  that  he  should  go  to  his 
country  home,  a  dilapidated  manor-house  in  the  wild 
and  lonely  lake  district  where  the  Volga  rises.  His 
two  brothers,  one  a  widower  with  children,  the  other 
a  bachelor,  lived  there  with  an  elderly  maiden  aunt. 
The  aunt  had  written  to  Olive,  begging  her  to  come 
with  him  and  give  the  family  an  opportunity  of 
meeting  her  before  she  returned  to  England;  and 
she  had  accepted  the  invitation  in  laboriously  traced 
Russian  characters.  Karol  also  had  promised  to 
spend  a  summer  holiday  with  them. 

Towards  the  end  of  July  she  left  town  with  the 
convalescent  patient.  He  bore  the  train  journey 
well,  but  three  days  of  jolting  in  a  springless  cart 
over  impossible  roads  through  forest  and  swamp 
and  heathy  scrub,  and  two  nights  in  an  improvised 
hammock  in  filthy  *'  post-stations"  cost  him  nearly 
all  the  little  strength  that  he  had  regained.     Every 


54  OLIVE    LATHAM 

now  and  then  they  would  pass  a  wretched  village, 
pestilent  and  hunger-bitten,  where  stunted  beggars, 
clustering  round  with  outstretched  hands,  assailed 
their  ears  with  a  long,  monotonous  whine,  and  where 
the  only  prosperous  creatures  seemed  the  priests, 
the  drink-shop  keepers,  and  the  swarming  vermin. 
Then  the  wilderness  would  close  round  again. 

Karol  met  them  at  a  little  town  half-way,  and 
they  finished  the  journey  together.  On  the  third 
evening  they  came  to  a  desolate  lake  between  deep 
pine-woods.  Flocks  of  startled  wild-duck  rose  from 
the  lily-leaves  as  they  passed,  and  Vladimir's  hag- 
gard face  lit  up  at  the  whirring  of  their  wings. 

"  Our  lake ;  you'll  see  the  house  presently.  I 
told  you  we  were  rich  in  game  and  water-lilies,  if 
in  nothing  else." 

''  And  lilies  of  the  valley  in  their  season,  surely, 
from  the  acres  of  leaves  we  have  passed." 

"  Yes,  nightingales  and  wild  flowers  are  all  our 
treasures  here,  except  the  trees." 

His  eyes  turned  lovingly  to  the  black  belt  of 
forest. 

"  I  wouldn't  be  too  modest,"  Karol  put  in  with 
his  lazy  drawl.  "  Don't  forget  the  wolves,  and 
bears,  and  snakes." 

"  Are  there  many  snakes  ?"  Olive  asked.  Karol 
shrugged  his  shoulders. 


OLIVE    LATHAM  55 

"'  Any  amount,  including  the  money-lenders  and 
drink-shop  keepers.  There's  also  great  wealth  of 
criminals,  and  idiots,  and  mosquitoes,  and  ague,  and 
vermin,  and  unmentionable  diseases.  Quite  a  lot  to 
choose  from." 

Vladimir  fired  up  at  once.  In  defence  of  this 
beloved  and  inhospitable  wilderness  he  was  ready  to 
quarrel  even  with  his  dearest  friend.  This  was, 
indeed,  an  old  cause  of  dispute.  To  KaroFs 
practical  nature  such  wasting  of  land  and  timber 
and  human  life  was  a  personal  annoyance.  The 
natural  beauties  of  the  country  were  spoilt  to  him 
by  an  aching  impatience  to  see  the  marshes  drained, 
the  forests  thinned  and  regulated,  and  decent  roads 
made  between  the  villages ;  but  Vladimir,  though  he 
might  agree  theoretically,  would  in  his  heart  have 
resented  the  lopping  of  a  single  tree. 

The  district  was  cursed  alike  by  nature  and  by 
men;  frozen  for  half  the  year,  malarious  the  other 
half,  neglected,  chronically  famine-stricken,  infested 
by  beasts  of  prey.  For  a  hundred  years  the  peasants 
had  been  hemmed  into  their  desert  by  the  enormous 
and  permanent  military  camp  stationed  along  the 
western  border.  Generations  of  vice  and  slavery  had 
poisoned  them,  body  and  soul;  and  emancipation, 
to  them,  meant  only  that  they  were  now  plundered 
and  ill-used  by  officials  and  money-lenders  instead 


56  OLIVE    LATHAM 

of  by  land-owners  and  overseers.  The  rest  of  the 
scanty  population  consisted  of  a  sprinkling  of  low- 
class  Jews,  the  refuse  of  the  Ghettos,  an  occasional 
Tartar  pedlar,  gipsy  horse-dealer  or  sharp-eyed  Ger- 
man "  sweater,"  and  a  few  degenerate  families  of 
petty  nobility.  These  last,  ruined  in  character  by 
the  long  habit  of  owning  serfs,  in  pocket  by  losing 
them,  lingered  on  in  helpless  and  penurious  idleness, 
as  wretched  as  their  former  slaves  and  almost  as 
ignorant. 

Nevertheless,  in  Vladimir's  eyes  this  was  the 
fairest  spot  on  earth.  It  was  bound  up  with  all  the 
little  hope  and  happiness  that  he  had  ever  known. 
Here  he  had  grown  from  childhood,  dreaming 
golden  dreams  of  a  sculptor's  life;  here,  shyly  in 
secret,  before  the  black  years  came,  he  had  tried  his 
hand  at  modelling.  Now  there  were  other  secrets 
and  other  dreams;  but  he  still  loved  the  place  with 
a  hot  and  jealous  passion.  Everything  here  was 
beautiful  to  him :  the  echoing  distance  in  deep 
woods;  the  untrodden  tangle  of  the  alder-swamp, 
golden  with  iris,  blue  with  forget-me-not;  the  vir- 
ginal robe  of  snow  in  winter,  of  lilies  in  spring; 
the  ghostly  mist-wreaths  over  lake  and  fen;  the 
sunsets,  red  between  red  pine-trunks.  Even  the 
most  unfriendly  aspects  of  nature;  frost  and  ague 
and   deadly   mire-holes,   hidden   under   treacherous 


OLIVE    LATHAM  57 

bog-grass ;  the  circling  of  great  hawks  by  day,  the 
howl  of  many  wolves  by  night;  to  him,  all  had 
their  part  in  the  menacing  and  mournful  splendour 
of  this  pitiless  land. 

The  two  friends  were  still  disagreeing  when  a 
turn  of  the  road  brought  them  to  the  end  of  the  lake 
and  to  a  hill  rising  sharply  above  it.  An  avenue 
of  great  lime-trees,  thick  with  blossom,  led  up  from 
the  water's  edge  to  the  manor-house  on  the  top. 
Low  and  rambling,  roughly  built  of  split  tree- 
trunks  and  dried  moss,  the  porch  awry,  the  balcony 
falling  into  ruin,  the  house  yet  retained,  in  its 
slovenly  and  poverty-stricken  decay,  a  shabby  pre- 
tentiousness, an  indolent  gentility.  It  seemed  to 
spread  itself  out  scornfully  above  the  starved  village 
huddled  by  the  lake-shore,  proclaiming  that  the  men 
who  had  lived  here  in  the  old  serf-owning  days, 
though  they  went  unwashed  for  weeks  together, 
and  ignored  the  commonest  decencies  of  life,  had 
been  too  fine  to  do  for  themselves  any  simple  office 
which  they  could  flog  or  terrify  some  wretched 
slave  into  doing  for  them.  Around  and  behind  the 
main  building  were  grouped  the  humbler  depend- 
encies which  had  ministered  to  its  tawdry  dignity: 
the  huge  servants'  quarters  (there  had  been  many 
servants),  the  kitchens,  the  bath-house,  the  bake- 
house,   the    ice-house;     and   the    stables,    carefully 


58  OLIVE    LATHAM 

placed  a  little  way  off,  that  the  cries  of  serfs  under 
punishment  there  might  not  disturb  the  ladies  of  the 
house.  The  same  consideration  for  the  ladies  had 
put  a  screen  of  trees  round  a  small  separate  dwell- 
ing-house a  few  paces  beyond  the  stables.  This 
building,  which  had  now  been  set  apart  for  Vladimir 
and  Karol,  was  the  "  pavilion,"  where  each  succes- 
sive serf-owner  had  been  wont  to  install  the  favour- 
ite mistress  of  the  moment.  She,  not  being  a  lady, 
would,  of  course,  have  no  fanciful  delicacy  about 
the  sound  of  shrieks  and  moans.  Here  the  girl,  in 
prosperous  times  perhaps  a  little  French  dress- 
maker or  German  circus-rider  brought  from  town, 
more  often  the  wife  or  daughter  of  some  cowed 
and  acquiescent  villager,  would  lounge  away  her 
youth  in  dreary  idleness,  eating  cheap  sweets  and 
growing  fat.  Then,  when  the  first  gray  hairs 
showed,  or  some  new  fancy  caught  the  master's 
eyes,  she  would  be  turned  out  of  doors,  if  a  stranger, 
to  beg  her  way  back  to  town;  if  native-born  and 
his  property,  she  would  drift  into  the  filthy  servants' 
quarters  to  wear  out  the  rest  of  her  life  as  a  house- 
hold drudge,  under  the  lash  of  her  lady's  tongue; 
and,  perhaps,  if  she  did  not  bear  her  changed  for- 
tunes meekly,  would  come,  in  her  turn,  to  the 
stables. 

Karol  pointed  out  the  various  buildings  to  Olive, 


OLIVE    LATHAM  59 

explaining  their  original  uses.  He  was  walking 
up  the  hill  to  relieve  the  horses,  and  she  also  had 
insisted  on  getting  out.  She  listened  in  silence; 
the  cart  was  close  beside  them,  and  she  could  see 
the  sick  man's  brilliant  eyes  glow  and  soften  at  the 
sight  of  now  one  familiar  tree-trunk  and  now 
another.  She  was  wondering,  as  she  watched  the 
vivid,  passionate  face,  by  what  cruel  irony  of  chance 
a  man  who  could  feel  so  keenly  had  been  born 
inheritor  of  all  this  stagnant  rottenness. 

The  spinster  aunt  was  waiting  for  them  on  the 
balcony  steps,  surrounded  by  the  five  children, 
whose  father  and  uncle  had  not  yet  returned  from 
the  day's  work  on  the  farm.  She  was  a  kindly  soul, 
not  overburdened  with  intelligence,  much  addicted 
to  religious  exercises  and  the  making  of  jam,  and 
devotedly  attached  to  Vladimir,  though  always  a 
little  afraid  of  him.  In  the  bottom  of  her  heart  she 
nourished  a  bitter  grudge  against  the  "  clever  town 
friends,"  without  whom,  she  firmly  believed,  her 
darling  Volodya  would  never  have  "  got  into  trou- 
ble." Governments  were  in  her  eyes  inconvenient 
creatures,  which,  like  wolves  and  mosquitoes,  should 
be  endured  as  patiently  as  may  be,  seeing  that  it  has 
pleased  Providence  to  create  them.  Of  course,  they 
make  themselves  unpleasant,  that  being  their  nature ; 
but  it  is  sinful  to  grumble,  and  to  kick  only  makes 


60  OLIVE    LATHAM 

things  worse.  She  had  explained  all  this  defiantly 
to  Karol  on  the  occasion  of  his  first  visit  to 
Lyesnoye;  and  when,  to  her  amazement,  he  had 
gently  and  seriously  agreed  with  every  word,  she 
had  kissed  him  on  both  cheeks,  and,  ignoring  the 
fact  that  he  was  a  Pole,  and  therefore  a  Papist  infidel, 
had  made  the  sign  of  the  cross  over  him  in  orthodox 
Russian  fashion.  Since  then  he  had  become,  in  his 
individual  capacity,  as  dear  to  her  as  her  own 
nephews,  though  she  still  continued  to  object  to  him 
in  his  quality  of  a  clever  town  friend. 

Against  Olive  all  her  prejudices  were  ranged 
erect  like  a  porcupine's  quills.  That  the  girl 
was  Vladimir's  betrothed,  an  interloper  stealing  his 
heart  away  from  his  own  kin,  would  have  been 
offence  enough.  But  she  was  also  a  foreigner,  an 
infidel,  probably  a  student.  "  Student,"  the  most 
opprobrious  word  in  Aunt  Sonya's  vocabulary,  was 
in  her  mouth  a  general  term  for  persons  who  read 
incomprehensible  books,  get  into  difficulties  with  the 
police,  and  omit  to  cross  themselves  in  a  thunder- 
storm. Worst  of  all,  Olive  was  English.  Aunt 
Sonya,  whose  experience  of  the  world  outside 
Lyesnoye  was  limited  to  two  holidays  in  Moscow 
and  one  in  St.  Petersburg,  had  never  seen  an 
English  person  in  her  life,  and  her  ideas  of  England 
and  the  English  were  based  on  Anglophobe  articles 


OLIVE    LATHAM  61 

in  the  Russian  daily  press.  She  had  tried  hard  to 
form  a  mental  picture  of  the  girl  beforehand;  but 
it  oscillated  quaintly  between  the  dangerous  siren, 
entrapper  and  destroyer  of  unsuspecting  men,  of 
whom  she  had  read  in  foolish  novels,  the  "  shock- 
headed  female  Nihilist"  so  persistently  abused  by 
the  reactionary  papers,  and  the  spectacled,  caroty- 
haired,  ogre-mouthed  Englishwoman  of  popular 
caricature. 

She  received  the  intruder  with  an  icily  ceremoni- 
ous bow  which  caused  much  secret  amusement  to 
the  onlookers,  but  quite  failed  to  impress  Olive, 
who  went  placidly  to  change  her  dress,  merely 
supposing  that  the  old  lady  was  shy  with  strangers. 
A  little  later  in  the  evening,  when  the  two  big 
brothers  had  come  in  and  the  children  were  asleep. 
Aunt  Sonya's  flow  of  eager  talk  was  cut  short  by 
a  gently  decisive :  ''  It  is  time  for  you  to  go  to  bed 
now,  Volodya." 

"  What,  before  supper?"  cried  the  old  lady;  ''  but 
I've  scarcely  seen  him,  and  the  boys  have  only  just 
come  in;  he  can't  go  yet." 

"  I'm  sorry,"  Olive  replied  in  her  broken  Russian; 
"  but  I  have  Dr.  Slavinski's  orders." 

It  seemed  not  to  occur  to  her  that  anyone  could 
question  her  authority.  They  all  submitted,  of 
course,  and  looked  on  helplessly,  while  she  arranged 


62  OLIVE    LATHAM 

her  patient's  room,  put  aside  as  unsuitable  the  food 
which  they  had  prepared  for  him,  and  made  him 
eat  what  she  brought  in. 

"  Now  he  had  better  be  quiet,"  she  said,  and  they 
went  meekly  out  of  the  room. 

Karol,  meanwhile,  was  smoking  on  the  balcony 
of  the  main  building.  He  was  free  to  enjoy  the  sight 
and  scent  of  lime-blossom,  knowing  that  there  was 
no  need  for  him  to  come  in ;  Olive  could  be  trusted 
to  carry  out  his  instructions  in  the  teeth  of  any  num- 
ber of  excited  aunts  and  brothers. 

''She's  very  .  .  .  masterful,  isn't  she?"  said 
the  old  lady,  coming  out  to  him  with  an  anxious 
pucker  between  her  brows.  "  But  she's  quiet  about 
it.  Do  you  think  she'll  make  Volodya  happy  ?  The 
good  God  owes  him  a  little  bit  of  happiness,  though 
perhaps  it's  a  sin  to  say  it  .  .  ."  She  crossed  her- 
self, sighing. 

Karol  slowly  took  the  cigarette  from  his  mouth 
and  blew  away  a  cloud  of  smoke. 

"  The  girl's  all  right,"  he  said,  in  his  deep  and 
leisurely  tones.  "  I  wouldn't  worry  my  head  about 
it,  auntie;   she's  a  decent  girl  enough." 

This,  from  Karol,  was  high  praise,  and  the  old 
lady  felt  comforted.  She  sat  with  him,  Hstening  to 
the  murmur  of  the  branches,  till  Olive's  voice  said 
behind  them : 


OLIVE    LATHAM  63 

"  Dr.  Slavinski,  Volodya  would  like  to  speak  to 
you." 

Karol  rose  and  went  in.  Aunt  Sonya,  looking 
up,  saw  the  girl  standing  beside  her,  tranquil  and 
grave,  the  lamplight  from 'the  window  falling  on  her 
face  and  hair. 

*'  My  dear,"  the  old  lady  began  timidly,  and  broke 
off.    Olive  turned  her  head. 

"  Are  you  cold  ?    Can  I  get  you  a  shawl  ?" 

Aunt  Sonya  hesitated.  She  felt  herself  baffled, 
and  could  not  understand  why. 

''  No,"  she  said,  rising;  ''  I'll  go  in  now.  Oh,  you 
are  very  kind,  I'm  sure." 

She  bowed  stiffly  as  Olive  opened  the  glass  door 
for  her;  then,  with  a  sudden  impulse,  reached  up 
on  tiptoe,  and  kissed  the  tall  girl's  cheek. 

Karol,  coming  out  a  few  minutes  later,  found 
Olive  alone  on  the  balcony,  her  eyes  fixed  on  the 
dark  mass  of  the  lime-trees.  It  was  a  long  time 
before  he  spoke. 

"  All  the  same,  you  need  not  be  so  anxious,"  he 
said,  continuing  a  conversation  which  had  not  been 
begun.  "  It's  only  that  the  journey  has  pulled  him 
down  a  bit.  And  as  for  all  the  corruption  and 
beastliness  that  he  has  come  out  of,  it  just  shows 
what  he  was  made  of  to  come  out." 

The  girl's  strained  face  relaxed.     She  was  grow- 


64  OLIVE    LATHAM 

ing  accustomed  to  Karol's  way  of  guessing  and 
answering  her  thoughts;  and  found  it,  in  this  new 
and  perplexing  world,  a  relief  to  have  someone 
understand  her  when  she  could  not  understand 
herself. 


CHAPTER    IV 

"Volodya!  Vladimir!  Volodya,  aa  .  .  .  u- 
u-u  .  .  .    !" 

The  old  peasant,  sitting  with  his  old  wife  plaiting 
bast  shoes  by  the  lake-shore,  looked  up  with  bleared 
eyes. 

"  Vladimir  Ivanych  is  in  the  pavilion  with  his 
mud  stuff  and  a  dead  bird." 

"A  dead  bird?" 

"  Yes,  little  mother ;  one  of  those  big  buzzard- 
hawks.  Piotr  Ivanych  shot  it  to  get  the  tail-feathers 
for  the  foreign  lady's  hat;  but  she  wouldn't  have 
it;  said  she  didn't  like  to  see  wild  things  killed. 
Seems  it's  the  fashion  in  town  nowadays  for  the 
quality  to  be  tender-hearted.  So  Vladimir  Ivanych 
carried  it  off  to  the  pavilion.  He's  been  there  all 
to-day  and  yesterday  making  a  mud  image  of  it." 

Aunt  Sonya,  picking  her  way  across  the  marshy 
ground  at  the  water's  edge,  reached  a  path  running 
up  the  side  of  the  hill  to  the  "  pavilion,"  now  Vladi- 
mir's special  domain.  The  old  man  looked  after 
her  with  lazy  scorn  as  she  toiled  up  the  hill. 

"  Yes,  yes,"  he  muttered  over  his  bast-plaiting. 
"  The  quality !    Soiling  their  white  hands  with  mud, 

5  65 


66  OLIVE    LATHAM 

and  running  their  own  errands,  and  trapesing  about 
on  foot  to  nurse  the  sick.  Times  are  changed,  little 
mother,  since  we  were  young."  He  laughed,  and 
turned  to  his  wife  with  an  ugly  look. 

"  Nursing  the  sick ;  eh,  Parasha  ?  And  who 
knows  what  sort  of  stuff  she  gives  them,  the  English 
witch?" 

The  old  woman  nodded  her  head.     He  went  on: 

"  There's  been  a  lot  of  sickness  lately  at 
Borodyevka.  The  English  devil  and  that  foreign 
doctor  fellow  have  been  round  there,  telling  the 
people  a  heap  of  lies ;  saying  the  children  die  because 
the  cowsheds  are  too  close  to  the  well  and  the  muck- 
heap  washes  down  when  it  rains — a  likely  story !" 

"  I  doubt  it's  they  that  have  poisoned  the 
well." 

"  Or  laid  a  curse  on  the  children.  Who  knows, 
with  infidels  like  that?  They  haven't  even  a  cross 
on  their  necks." 

The  wife  began  to  laugh. 

"  And  who  knows  what  they  do,  she  and  her 
doctor  fellow,  when  they  get  into  the  woods  alone? 
Why,  Fve  seen  the  brazen  jade  rowing  on  the  lake 
with  nothing  over  her  hair!" 

"  And  that  carrion  scarecrow  up  there  making 
his  heathen  mud  images  and  thinking  she  cares  about 
him.    Oho !  the  quality  and  their  fancies !" 


OLIVE    LATHAM  67 

The  two  sat  laughing  together  over  their  joke. 
The  paviHon  stood  a  Uttle  higher  than  the  other 
buildings.  The  screen  of  trees  shut  it  out  on  three 
sides,  but  it  was  open  to  the  south,  and  commanded 
a  beautiful  view  over  forest  and  lake.  The  door 
was  wide  open,  and  Aunt  Sonya  paused  on  the 
threshold,  looking  in.  Vladimir,  in  the  loose  scarlet 
shirt  and  leather  belt  of  the  country,  was  standing 
by  a  rough  wooden  bench,  modelling  in  clay.  The 
dead  hawk  lay  on  a  table  before  him,  its  great  wings 
outstretched.  The  splendid  vigour  of  the  unfinished 
work  made  no  impression  on  Aunt  Sonya;  she  had 
seen  her  nephew's  modelling  before,  and  only 
regretted  that  his  favourite  recreation  should  be 
''  such  a  messy  one."  Since  Karol,  the  peacemaker, 
had  suggested  to  her  that,  after  all,  drink  or  cards 
would  have  been  worse,  she  had  become  more  recon- 
ciled to  the  clay;  gentlemen  always  have  their 
fancies,  and  if  the  hobbies  are  cheap  and  inoffensive, 
one  should  be  thankful. 

Her  shadow  fell  across  his  bench,  and  he  looked 
up. 

"Why,  auntie  r 

"  My  dear,  I  wish  you  would  not  stand  in  such 
a  draught.    You'll  catch  another  chill." 

*'  I  like  the  air,  auntie,  and  the  view,  especially 
on  a  day  like  this." 


68  OLIVE    LATHAM 

He  wiped  the  clay  from  his  hands,  and  sat  down 
on  the  window-sill,  looking  out  at  the  cloud-shad- 
ows flitting  across  the  lake. 

''  Has  Olive  come  in  yet?"  he  asked. 

''  No ;  she's  been  the  whole  day  in  the  village  with 
a  bad  case." 

"IsKarol  withher?" 

"  Yes,  he  was  fetched  early,  and  sent  up  after 
breakfast  to  ask  her  to  come  down  and  help  him. 
They  never  even  came  in  to  dinner;  they're  not 
getting  much  of  a  holiday,  either  of  them." 

"  No,  but  they're  both  well  and  strong,  and  they 
love  the  work.  I'm  not  anxious,  however  much 
she  does,  so  long  as  Karol  is  here ;  but  I  don't  quite 
like  the  idea  of  her  going  on  with  it  alone  after  he 
leaves  us.  The  people  suspect  her  of  black  magic 
already;  it  might  be  awkward  for  her  if  anything 
went  wrong." 

Aunt  Sonya  settled  herself  more  comfortably  in 
the  big  chair.  She  had  come  up  to  enjoy  an  hour's 
quiet  chat  with  her  favourite  nephew;  and,  of 
course,  the  idea  that  she  was  interrupting  him  at  a 
critical  moment  of  his  work  never  crossed  her  mind. 
He  washed  his  hands,  laid  a  wet  cloth  over  the  clay, 
and  sat  down  again,  smiling  to  hide  the  aching 
disappointment  that  it  would  have  been  unkind  to 
let  her  see.     If  he  could  have  had  one  more  half- 


OLIVE    LATHAM  69 

hour  undisturbed,  he  might  have  got  that  difficult 
curve  of  the  left  wing. 

"  Well,  auntie,"  he  said  brightly ;  "  and  what 
news  have  you  got  to  tell  me?  I  haven't  seen  you 
since  breakfast." 

"  No,  indeed,  going  off  with  a  bit  of  bread  and 
cheese  in  your  pocket  like  a  tramp  and  never  coming 
in  to  dinner !  I  don't  get  much  company  out  of  having 
you  all  here ;  one  messing  about  with  clay  the  whole 
day  long,  and  the  others  with  sick  people.  And  I'd 
made  a  pie,  the  kind  you  like,  wnth  mushrooms." 

"  Never  mind ;  we'll  have  the  pie  cold.  And  now 
tell  me  about  the  roan  mare.  Has  that  gipsy  fellow 
been  round  again  to-day?" 

"  Yes ;  he  says  her  leg  will  never  be  sound  again ; 
but  Petya  thinks  that's  only  because  he  wants  to  buy 
her  cheap." 

"  To  sell  at  the  Smolensk  horse- fair,  no  doubt." 

"  Yes,  he's  been  collecting  cattle  round  the  vil- 
lages. By  the  way,  he's  just  come  from  Gvoz- 
dyevka;  it  was  the  rat-poison  that  killed  the  old 
beggar-man." 

"  Karol  thought  so  from  the  first ;  directly  he 
heard  about  the  symptoms  he  said :  '  That's  strych- 
nine.' But  what  made  Akulina  do  it?  Had  she  a 
grudge  against  the  old  fellow?  Beggars  are  not 
worth  robbing." 


70  OLIVE    LATHAM 

"  She'd  never  seen  him  before.  She's  confessed 
everything  now.  It  was  Mitya  that  gave  her  the 
poison,  to  kill  his  wife  with.  He  bought  it  from 
that  Tartar  pedlar,  Akhmetka." 

"Mitya  who?" 

"  Red-headed  Mitya,  down  in  the  village  here. 
He  wanted  to  get  rid  of  his  wife,  you  see,  because 
she  was  always  so  ill  after  the  babies  were  born,  and 
couldn't  milk  the  cows;  but  he  didn't  care  to  take 
the  risk  himself,  so  he  gave  Akulina  the  rat-poison, 
and  promised  to  marry  her  if  she  did  it." 

"  But  what  had  the  beggar  to  do  with  Mitya^s 
wives?" 

"Nothing;  he  just  came  along  the  road  and 
asked  for  a  drink,  so  she  tried  the  stuff  on  him  to 
see  if  it  was  real  poison.  She  says :  Tartars  always 
cheat  you  if  they  can,  and  how's  a  poor  woman  to 
know  she's  got  the  right  stuff  if  she  doesn't  try?" 

"  Well,  that's  sound  argument,"  said  Karol, 
coming  in  with  Olive  and  sitting  down  lazily  on  the 
edge  of  the  table.  "  Auntie,  I  told  that  squint-e3^ed 
girl — what's  her  name — Theophylacta  ? — to  bring 
the  tea  here.  Miss  Latham  is  tired  out,  and  it's  time 
Volodya  left  off  working." 

Olive  had  sat  down  on  the  wooden  bench  beside 
the  door,  resting  her  chin  on  one  hand.  She  was 
evidently  very  tired,  and  her  face  looked  older  and 


OLIVE    LATHAM  71 

thinner  than  a  few  weeks  ago.  Aunt  Sonya  jumped 
up  at  once  in  her  bustling,  good-natured  way. 

"  My  dear,  how  pale  you  are !  And  you've  had 
nothing  to  eat  all  day ;  you  must  be  starving.  When 
did  you  get  back  ?" 

''  Just  now ;  we  went  in  to  change  our  clothes, 
and  came  straight  on  here.  It's  all  right;  I'm  only 
tired." 

The  old  lady  stroked  the  white  cheek  affection- 
ately, and  went  off  to  direct  Theophylacta.  Her  easy 
nature  had  already  formed  a  new  attachment.  The 
English  in  general  remained  foreign  devils,  but 
Olive  was  a  privileged  exception,  to  be  petted  in 
spite  of  her  objectionable  nationality,  just  as  Karol 
was  petted  in  spite  of  his. 

Karol  pulled  a  book  out  of  his  pocket,  and  began 
to  read.  Vladimir  stooped  down  over  the  girl  and 
pushed  back  the  hair  from  her  forehead.  He  had 
the  sensitive  finger-tips  that  can  touch  without 
wounding,  and  the  little  contraction  of  her  eyebrows 
smoothed  itself  away.  For  so  well-balanced  a  per- 
son she  was  peculiarly  easily  distressed  by  the  wrong 
touch,  and  it  had  been  a  real  effort  to  her  not  to 
wince  under  the  old  lady's  podgy  hand. 

''  Don't  weary  yourself  so,  little  girl,"  he  said  in 
his  caressing  broken  English.  "  What  have  you 
been  so  desperately  busy  over  all  day?" 


72  OLIVE   LATHAM 

Her  face  darkened  again. 

"  Helping  Dr.  Slavinski  to  commit  a  crime." 

"  Yes,"  Karol  assented,  without  looking  up  from 
his  book.  "  That's  true  enough  if  you  come  to  think 
of  it.    But  you'd  do  it  again." 

"  That  makes  it  all  the  worse,"  she  retorted 
gloomily. 

Vladimir  looked  from  one  to  the  other.  "  Saving 
an  undesirable  life  ?" 

"  Two  lives,"  she  said  in  the  same  hard  way,  her 
eyes  fixed  on  the  lake.  "  A  mother  that  would  be 
better  dead,  and  child  that  ought  never  to  have  been 
born.  Of  course,  I  should  do  it  again,  Dr.  Slavinski, 
just  as  you  would;  but  it's  a  sin  and  a  shame  to 
keep  such  people  alive,  and  you  know  it  as  well  as 
I  do." 

Karol  put  down  his  book.  He  had  become  very 
grave,  and  in  this  mood  was  more  unapproachable 
than  ever. 

"  No,"  he  said.  "  I  thought  I  knew  it  when  I  was 
your  age.  Now  I  know  that  I  know  nothing;  and 
I  plod  on  and  do  what  I  can  in  the  dark.  You  start 
with  fine  theories,  like  the  rest  of  us;  but  you'll 
come  to  that  in  time." 

She  made  a  quick  gesture  of  protest.  But  Karol 
had  gone  back  to  his  book  and  was  again  a  merely 
negative  presence. 


OLIVE    LATHAM  73 

"But,  Olive,"  Vladimir  said  at  last;  ''you  must 
have  seen  discouraging  sights  in  the  London  slums 
too.    Why  .  .  .    ?" 

She  broke  in  vehemently. 

"  Discouraging  sights !  Oh,  one  sees  enough  of 
them  everywhere.  But  here  one  sees  nothing  else — 
nothing  at  all.  Volodya,  in  all  that  village  there's 
not  one  sound  man  or  woman  or  child.  The  people 
are  rotting  alive,  body  and  soul.  That  cottage 
where  we've  been  all  day — there  are  ten  persons  in 
it,  four  generations.  From  the  great-grandfather 
to  the  baby  born  to-day  they  ought  to  be  chloro- 
formed, every  one.  They're  diseased  to  the  mar- 
row of  their  bones ;  the  father  a  drunkard,  the  aunt 
an  idiot,  the  grandmother  ...  oh,  I  can't  describe 
it.    And  the  talk!" 

She  stopped  with  a  shiver  of  disgust. 

"I  waited  outside,"  she  went  on;  "till  Dr.  Sla- 
vinski  wanted  me.  The  grandmother  and  a  neigh- 
bour sat  down  by  me  and  began  talking  about 
that  poisoning  case  at  the  other  village.  All  they 
could  see  in  it  was  that  the  Commune  was  very  stupid 
not  to  have  closed  with  the  offer  of  the  police  to 
hush  the  matter  up  for  twelve  kopecks  a  head.  They 
said  that  when  there  was  a  corpse  found  in  the 
flooded  meadow  last  year  the  Borodyevka  people 
paid  seven  kopecks  each,  and  that  one  expects  to  pay 


74  OLIVE    LATHAM 

a  little  extra  in  summer.  It's  like  a  bad  dream  to 
hear  them  talk." 

''  The  rate  on  corpses  is  always  higher  at  harvest 
time,"  Karol  put  in  placidly,  over  his  book.  ''  But 
the  Gvozdyevka  people  struck  because  the  police  ran 
it  up  too  much.  They  said  they  wouldn't  pay  more 
than  ten.  You  see,  they  have  to  draw  the  line  some- 
where, or  there'd  be  nothing  left  for  the  tax-gath- 
erer. Ah,  there's  the  tea.  That  girl  will  do  herself 
an  injury;    the  tray's  too  heavy." 

He  jumped  up  with  a  quickness  surprising  in  so 
big  and  lazy  a  man,  and  ran,  rather  awkwardly, 
down  the  slope  to  carry  the  tray  up  for  the  maid- 
servant. Vladimir  stood  still  beside  Olive,  his  hand 
on  her  shoulder. 

"  Dear,"  he  said;  "  I  did  warn  you  at  the  begin- 
ning. It's  no  light  matter  to  have  a  lover  who  lives 
in  hell.  You  have  seen  only  a  very  little  glimpse 
of  it  yet." 

She  turned  quickly,  and  put  her  cheek  against  his 
hand.  She  was  so  reserved  and  shy,  and  a  caress 
from  her  was  so  rare  a  thing,  that  the  man  changed 
colour  and  trembled  at  its  suddenness.  An  instant 
later  she  released  herself  and  sat  up  stiffly. 

*' What  about  your  modelling?  May  I  see  it 
yet?" 

He  took  off  the  cloth.    When  Karol  came  in  with 


OLIVE    LATHAM  75 

the  tea-tray,  she  was  standing  silently  before  the 
rough  clay  image.  He  came  and  stood  beside  her, 
silent  too. 

"  I  didn't  know  you  could  do  cruel  things  like 
that,"  she  said,  raising  troubled  eyes  to  her  lover's 
face. 

"  I  did,"  said  Karol.  "  It's  a  bit  brutal,  Volodya, 
but  it's  strong  enough." 

"It's  cruel,"  the  girl  persisted.  "It's  battle, 
murder,  and  sudden  death.  The  thing  has  wanted 
to  live,  it  has  been  willing  to  fight  for  its  life,  and 
it's  not  been  given  a  fair  chance." 

Vladimir  burst  out  laughing.  It  was  fortunate 
that  he  seldom  laughed,  for  the  sound  was  not  a 
pleasant  one  to  hear. 

"  Well,  that's  a  common  grievance,  anyway. 
Auntie,  come  and  sit  down  here.  I'll  clear  my  rub- 
bish off  the  table  and  we'll  have  tea." 

That  night  they  sat  late  on  the  balcony  by  moon- 
light. The  weather  was  unusually  clear  and  warm, 
and,  though  the  summer  was  waning  and  the  night- 
ingales had  gone,  soft,  intermittent  bird  voices 
called  and  twittered  in  the  sleeping  woods.  It  was 
the  last  evening  of  Karol's  visit ;  he  was  to  start  for 
Warsaw  in  the  morning.  Olive,  though  still  look- 
ing a  little  tired  after  her  long  day's  work,  assured 
them  she  was  quite  rested  now;   she  had  been  lying 


76  OLIVE    LATHAM 

down  in  her  room  whilst  Karol  and  Vladimir  played 
with  the  children. 

In  her  heart  she  would  have  been  glad  if,  without 
seeming  ungracious,  she  could  have  stayed  quietly 
by  herself  till  bedtime ;  the  evenings  in  the  drawing- 
room  at  Lyesnoye  were  always  trying  to  her.  Aunt 
Sonya,  tactless  and  affectionate,  could  be  trusted  to 
get  upon  the  nerves  of  any  overwrought  person ;  and 
Vladimir  in  particular,  being  the  creature  she  loved 
best  in  the  world,  had  often  a  good  deal  to  put  up 
with.  It  set  Olive's  teeth  on  edge  to  watch  him 
struggling  not  to  show  impatience  under  the  mad- 
dening dribble  of  questions  and  comment  and  chub- 
bily  maternal  caresses.  But  the  brothers  were 
worse. 

The  youngest  of  the  family,  Vanya,  though  not 
actually  an  idiot,  was  certainly  more  or  less  feeble- 
minded. He  had  not  intellect  enough  to  be  of  any 
real  use  on  the  farm,  otherwise  than  as  an  unskilled 
labourer,  and,  on  the  whole,  he  did  contentedly  the 
only  work  of  which  he  was  capable,  and  did  it  fairly 
well.  From  time  to  time,  however,  he  would  suc- 
cumb to  the  temptation  to  take  more  drink  than  his 
weak  head  could  stand;  and  whenever  that  hap- 
pened, the  serf-owning  ancestors  would  come  to  life 
in  him.  On  each  of  these  occasions  he  discovered 
anew  that  it  was  derogatory  to  his  dignity  to  soil  his 


OLIVE    LATHAM  77 

hands  with  manual  labour,  and  that  the  duty  of  a 
nobleman  is  to  uphold  the  power  of  the  state,  to 
enforce  respect  for  God  and  the  emperor,  and  to 
"  improve  the  race :"  that  is,  debauch  the  peasant 
girls.  He  seldom  aired  these  theories  in  the  manor- 
house,  having  found  by  experience  that  it  was 
unwise  to  do  so.  Petya,  his  eldest  brother,  had 
once  caught  him  teaching  a  young  dairy-maid  that 
submission  to  the  will  of  her  betters  is  a  peasant 
girl's  first  duty,  and  had  promptly  seized  him  by  the 
coat-collar  and  thrashed  him  with  a  riding-whip. 
Since  then  he  had  been  more  careful. 

Once  in  a  way,  however,  he  would  give  Aunt 
Sonya  the  benefit  of  his  aristocratic  opinions.  She, 
poor  soul,  remembering  the  days  of  her  youth  and 
the  brutal  scenes  when  her  father  used  to  get  drunk, 
would  sigh  and  cross  herself  as  her  mother  had  done 
fifty  years  ago,  and  say,  tearfully,  as  her  mother  had 
said  :  "  Vanya,  how  can  you !  Christ  be  with  you, 
Vanya!  Go  to  bed,  my  dove;  you'll  feel  better 
to-morrow."  Sometimes  there  was  considerable 
difficulty  in  getting  him  to  bed,  but  once  there,  he 
would  sleep  ofif  the  effects  of  the  drink,  and  next 
day  would  go  about  his  work  as  usual,  though  with 
a  short  temper  and  a  sullen  face.  After  two  or 
three  days  the  old  smiling,  vacuous,  heavily  good- 
natured  Vanya  would  reappear. 


78  OLIVE    LATHAM 

This  summer  he  was  on  his  best  behaviour.  His 
affection  for  Vladimir,  the  affection  of  a  mongrel 
cur  for  a  kind  master,  was  the  strongest  influence 
for  good  which  his  stunted  nature  knew.  Vladimir, 
to  his  dim  mind,  represented  an  embodied  and  visible 
conscience;  and  the  mere  phrase:  "  Volodya  won't 
be  pleased  with  you,"  would  sometimes  keep  him 
from  drink  and  debauchery  when  all  else  had  failed. 
The  keenest  sorrow  he  had  ever  known  was  that 
Vladimir  had  once  been  angry  with  him.  His 
offence  on  that  solitary  and  terrible  occasion  had 
been  cruelty  to  a  horse;  and  ever  since,  even  when 
drunk,  he  was  always  kind  to  animals. 

With  Olive  he  was  timidly  respectful,  admiring 
from  afar  the  favoured  woman  who  had  been  found 
worthy  of  his  idol's  choice,  but  with  a  savage 
jealousy  against  both  her  and  Karol  brooding 
underneath. 

The  widower,  Petya,  was  of  a  different  stamp. 
When  studying  natural  science  at  the  university  of 
Moscow  he  had  shown  promise  of  a  brilliant  future ; 
but  poverty  and  an  early  marriage  had  forced  him 
to  give  up  his  chances  of  a  scientific  career,  and 
return  to  the  mortgaged,  neglected,  impoverished 
family  estate  to  make  it  yield  bread  for  a  growing 
family.  The  death  of  his  wife,  to  whom  he  had 
been    deeply    attached,    and    the    tragedy    of    his 


OLIVE    LATHAM  79 

brother's  youth,  had  broken  the  mainspring  of  his 
character,  and  the  hereditary  curse  of  gentihty  in 
a  land  of  slaves  had  done  the  rest.  In  a  wider  world 
other  influences  might  have  counteracted  the  fatal 
lack  of  will-power;  but  at  Lyesnoye,  though  he 
worked  from  dawn  to  dusk,  and  denied  himself  the 
simplest  comforts,  he  remained  inevitably  one  of  the 
*'  quality,"  and  the  dry-rot  of  the  quality  had  eaten 
him  up.  At  thirty-five  he  was  an  utter  wreck,  an 
inveterate  and  hopeless  gambler. 

Once  in  a  few  months,  when  by  long  toil  and  the 
endurance  of  many  privations  he  had  scraped 
together  a  little  money,  he  would  borrow  a  raw- 
boned  hack  from  the  Jew  money-lender  who  kept 
the  village  drink-shop,  and  slink  off  to  the  nearest 
wretched  town,  with  some  lie  in  his  mouth  of  cattle 
to  sell  or  samples  of  grain  to  examine.  The  false- 
hoods deceived  neither  himself  nor  others;  the 
hired  horse  was  proof  enough.  He  knew,  as  every 
one  in  the  village  knew,  that  if  he  went  into  town  on 
a  horse  which  was  his  to  lose,  he  would  come  back 
on  foot.  Then  in  a  dirty  tavern,  poisoned  by  the 
reek  of  cheap  spirits  and  flaring  paraffin-lamps  and 
the  foul,  thin,  acrid  stench  of  cockroaches  and  bugs, 
he,  at  other  times  fastidiously  clean  in  all  his  habits 
and  tastes,  would  sit  with  the  captain  of  gendarm- 
erie and  the  drunken  forest  inspector,  and  gamble. 


80  OLIVE    LATHAM 

night  after  night,  the  whole  night  through.  He  had 
no  rehsh  for  their  filthy  talk  and  filthier  vices;  he 
was  a  chaste  man  and  a  proud  one,  and  in  his  sober 
senses  would  have  gone  hungry  rather  than  eat  at 
the  same  table  with  a  gendarme.  Yet  when  the 
gambling  lust  possessed  him,  he  would  clink  glasses 
with  them,  pretending  to  laugh  at  their  vilest  anec- 
dotes, lest  they  should  take  offence  and  refuse  to 
play.  When  the  last  coin  was  gone,  he  would  mount 
the  starved  horse  in  silence,  and  ride  the  thirty  miles 
home  between  dark,  unfriendly  woods,  his  head 
sunk  on  his  breast,  the  soughing  of  the  pines  in  his 
ears,  his  thoughts  bitter  with  shame  and  black  with 
shadows  of  suicide. 

Olive  had  not  seen  him  in  that  state.  The  pres- 
ence of  Vladimir,  the  only  person  in  the  world 
whom  he  still  loved  and  respected,  had  kept  him 
from  the  cards  this  summer;  but  the  craving  was 
strong  upon  him,  and  he  grew  more  silent,  more 
gloomily  restless  with  every  day. 

The  dreadful  thing  was  his  facial  resemblance  to 
Vladimir.  The  likeness  was  especially  strong  in 
profile,  and  when  he  sat  beside  Olive,  as  now  on  the 
balcony,  the  sight  of  this  weak  and  pitiful  replica 
of  her  lover's  head  made  the  girl  sick  at  heart.  It 
was  the  same  face  degraded;  its  stern  self -repres- 
sion lost,  its  tragedy  dwindled  into  more  bitterness, 


OLIVE    LATHAM  81 

its  stoic  patience  frittered  all  away.  Sometimes  she 
would  turn  from  it  for  relief  even  to  the  large,  con- 
tented, foolish  face  of  Vanya. 

''  Miss  Latham,"  said  Karol,  rising  as  the  clock 
struck  eleven ;  "  I'm  going  for  a  row.  Will  you 
come  with  me?  You  wanted  to  see  the  lake  by 
moonlight.  No,  not  you,  Volodya;  I'll  come  into 
your  room  and  have  a  talk  with  you  afterwards. 
The  lake  won't  do  for  you  to-night,  there's  mist  over 
the  water." 

''  But,  my  dear,"  cried  Aunt  Sonya ;  "  you're  not 
going  on  the  water  at  this  hour?  And  Olive  too? 
Why,  you'll  catch  your  deaths  of  cold,  and  very 
likely  get  drowned." 

She  secretly  thought  it  outrageously  improper  for 
a  young  girl  to  go  boating  at  night  alone  with  an 
unmarried  man;  but  she  had  been  cured  of  saying 
such  things,  though  not  of  thinking  them.  Sex 
attractions  and  sex  restrictions,  in  her  eyes,  made 
up  the  sum  of  normal  feminine  youth;  she  con- 
templated with  timid  amazement  the  grave  uncon- 
sciousness, the  stern  self-respect,  which  replaced,  in 
this  girl's  life,  her  code  of  demure  and  sniggering 
"  propriety." 

"  I  never  catch  cold,"  said  Olive,  putting  up  her 
needlework. 

''  And  Karol  never  gets  drowned,"  Petya  added. 
6 


82  OLIVE    LATHAM 

"  It's  not  in  his  destiny,  so  you  can  set  your  mind  at 
rest,  auntie." 

They  all  laughed  as  if  the  joke  had  been  quite  a 
cheerful  one;  Olive  alone  winced  a  little.  She  had 
scant  sense  of  humour,  and  could  not  find  anything 
funny  in  such  pleasantries. 

She  and  Karol  walked  down  the  lime  avenue 
together.  The  moon  was  full  in  a  clear  sky,  but 
under  the  roof  of  branches  it  was  dark.  The  man's 
tall  figure  moved  beside  her,  a  towering  shadow. 

^'  I'm  afraid  you're  going  to  have  a  bad  time," 
he  said,  after  walking  for  some  minutes  in  silence. 
"  You  have  a  trick  of  taking  things  seriously,  and 
that  doesn't  do  here,  unless  you're  going  to  take 
them  very  seriously  indeed." 

"  How  seriously  do  you  take  things  ?  For 
instance,  your  own  chances  of,  let  us  say,  not  getting 
drowned  ?" 

"  Sufficiently  seriously  to  have  given  up  troubling 
my  head  about  the  whole  question,  years  ago.  What 
matters  to  me  nowadays  is  not  which  particular 
way  I  may  happen  to  get  out  of  life,  but  what  sort 
of  things  I  succeed  in  doing  while  I'm  in  it.  Be 
careful;  that  hole  will  catch  your  foot.  You  had 
better  take  my  arm,  I  think." 

She  obeyed,  and  they  walked  to  the  bottom  of  the 
avenue  without  further  speech. 


OLIVE    LATHAM  83 

"  And  Volodya?"  she  said.  ''Do  you  .  .  .trouble 
your  head  about  what  he  is  hkely  to  succeed 
in  doing  before  he  goes  under?" 

She  had  a  curious  impression  of  a  momentary 
stiffening  of  the  arm  she  held,  but  the  movement, 
if  not  a  mere  fancy  of  hers,  was  very  slight. 
Coming  out  into  the  moonlight  the  next  instant,  she 
glanced  at  his  face,  and  noticed  resentfully  that  it 
was  quite  unchanged. 

"  You  have  not  answered  my  question,"  she  said 
presently,  and  drew  her  arm  away. 

He  walked  down  to  the  water's  edge,  and  loosed 
the  boat  from  its  moorings. 

"Will  you  get  in?" 

She  entered  the  boat  without  touching  his  prof- 
fered hand,  and  sat  down,  looking  away  from  him. 
He  took  the  sculls  and  put  off  from  the  shore. 

"  What's  the  use  of  asking  questions  like  that  ?" 
he  said  at  last,  pausing  to  lean  on  the  sculls.  "  We 
all  do  what  we  can,  and  go  under  when  we  must." 

"  I  asked  you,"  she  said,  her  voice  quivering  with 
anger ;  ''  because  I  have  been  wondering  lately 
whether  you  have  ever  once  thought  what  you  did 
by  dragging  him  into  your  politics  when  he  was 
scarcely  more  than  a  boy." 

He  answered  very  gravely : 

"  I  thought  of  it,  at  one  time  in  my  life,  more 


84  OLIVE    LATHAM 

often  than  was  reasonable.  Then  I  grew  up,  and 
left  off.  As  a  man  goes  on,  he  has  other  things  to 
think  about." 

"  Things  more  important  than  a  human  life  that 
you  may  have  happened  to  ruin  in  passing?" 

"  Things  more  important  than  any  one  life." 

She  flashed  a  wrathful  glance  at  him. 

"  Where  did  you  learn  such  an  Olympian  cer- 
tainty as  to  which  things  are  the  most  important?" 

''  At  Akatui." 

It  seemed  to  her  suddenly  that  she  had  been 
monstrously,  unpardonably  cruel.  She  sat  silent, 
appalled  at  the  riddle  of  these  people's  lives  and  at 
the  constant  risk  she  ran,  groping  her  way  blindfold 
among  them,  of  striking  her  ignorant  hand  against 
a  wound. 

He  dipped  the  sculls  again,  and  the  boat  moved  on 
slowly.  For  some  time  there  was  no  sound  but  the 
swishing  of  lily-leaves  against  the  bows  and  the 
sleepy  clucking  of  half-waked  water-fowl.  A  long 
wreath  of  mist,  silver  in  the  moonlight,  trailed 
towards  them  across  the  shining  surface  of  the  lake. 
Among  dark,  motionless  pines  a  hunting  owl  swept 
past  on  broad  wings. 

"  It's  no  use  raking  up  things  that  are  past  and 
done  with,"  Karol  said,  when  a  raucous  shriek  from 
the  owl  broke  in  upon  the  silence.     "  Volodya's  life 


OLIVE    LATHAM  85 

was  settled  long  ago ;  and  if  you  want  to  spare  his 
nerves  and  your  own,  you  had  better  accept  the 
facts,  and  make  the  best  of  them.  He  is  over  thirty, 
and  his  career  is  chosen." 

"  Who  chose  it?    He  or  you?" 

She  put  the  question  defiantly,  with  a  sharp 
resentment  against  herself  for  having  let  the  word 
"  Akatui"  turn  her  from  a  just  quarrel.  The  slow, 
scrutinizing  gaze  fixed  upon  her  face  made  her  eyes 
fall. 

"  Have  you  ever  asked  him?" 

He  had  baffled  her  again. 

"  I  asked  him  once  how  he  had  come  to  .  .  . 
to  take  the  first  step.  I  understand,  of  course,  when 
a  man  has  once  gone  in,  and  things  have  happened, 
he  doesn't  give  it  up ;  that's  different.  But  to  enter 
on  a  thing  like  that,  a  thing  so  foreign  to  his  nature, 
and  give  up  all  his  chances  of  studying  art  .  .  . 
I  couldn't  understand." 

"And  he  told  you?" 

"  He  told  me  that,  in  this  and  in  other  things,  he 
owes  more  to  you  than  to  anyone  on  earth.  He  said 
that  he  had  sat  in  darkness  and  you  had  shown  him 
a  great  light.  Oh,  he's  faithful  enough  to  you  and 
all  the  things  you  stand  for  to  him.  It's  only  I  that 
have  begun  to  wonder,  since  I  came  here,  whether 
the  light  is  worth  the  price  he  has  paid  for  it." 


86  OLIVE    LATHAM 

"  The  light  is  worth  any  price." 

"  Even  a  light  that  has  gone  out?" 

The  long-drawn,  heart-rending  howl  of  a  wolf 
rang  through  the  quiet  air.  Then  came  the  sobbing 
cry  of  some  small,  hurt  creature. 

^'  You  frighten  yourself  with  dreams,  like  a 
child,"  he  said,  with  stern  compassion.  "  Our  light 
doesn't  go  out." 

Olive  leaned  sideways  and  let  her  hand  trail  in 
the  water.  The  boat  was  drifting  slowly,  and  the 
smooth,  cold  leaves  of  the  lilies  slid  past  her  fingers. 
She  spoke  with  her  eyes  fixed  on  the  gleaming 
ripples. 

"  What  do  you  think  he  would  have  been  if  you 
had  not  converted  him?" 

"  A  sculptor." 

"  A  sculptor ;  perhaps  a  great  one  ?" 

"  Possibly.  There  is  no  doubt  that  he  had  talent ; 
he  may  have  had  even  genius." 

"  And  you,  what  have  you  made  of  him  ?" 

"  Nothing.  I  waked  him  up ;  his  own  nature  did 
the  rest.  It  has  made  him  what  he  is :  a  little  candle 
in  a  dark  place." 

"  Oh,  there's  no  help  in  that,"  she  cried  out  in 
distress.  "  All  these  things  are  beautiful  gen- 
eralities; I  want  to  come  at  the  truth.  He  says 
he  had  no  real  talent  for  sculpture ;  you  say  he  had 


OLIVE    LATHAM  87 

genius.  If  so,  you  killed  it  with  your  politics.  Do 
you  think  I  can't  see  that  he  doesn't  believe  in  it 
all — that  he  just  sticks  to  it  out  of  pure  loyalty,  mere 
hopeless  faithfulness  to  a  lost  cause?  His  life  has 
been  wasted,  and  neither  you  nor  he  will  be  honest 
enough  to  acknowledge  it." 

"  Do  you  think  it  is  altogether  waste  to  be  the 
one  clean  influence  in  a  place  like  this?  What 
about  those  poor  children?  He's  the  nearest 
approach  to  a  father  they  have.  You  may  not  see 
the  usefulness  of  his  political  work;  but  the  same 
quality  that  makes  him  do  it  makes  him  the 
guardian  angel  of  all  these  weak-kneed  folk  here." 

"  I  think,"  she  said,  looking  out  across  the  water, 
"  he  must  always  have  been  a  sort  of  guardian  angel 
to  weaker  people.  I  suppose  that's  the  way  he  was 
born." 

"  You  are  mistaken.  He  was  born  a  rather  mag- 
nificent savage.  When  I  knew  him  first,  he  cared 
about  weaker  people  just  in  so  far  as  they  were  good 
to  model." 

"  But  he  was  a  boy  when  you  knew  him  first ; 
that  doesn't  count.    He  hadn't  begun  to  live." 

"  He  was  twenty-one." 

"  What  does  that  matter  ?  He  had  seen  nothing  ; 
he  had  lived  in  a  desert.  Why,  it  was  when  he  first 
went  to  town  to  learn  modelling,  wasn't  it,  like  a 


88  OLIVE    LATHAM 

sort  of  Dick  Whittington,  with  no  money  and  no 
introductions  ?" 

"  Yes,  and  a  portfolio  full  of  drawings.  He  was 
going  to  get  a  scholarship,  and  go  to  Paris,  and  God 
knows  what  else.  Have  you  seen  any  of  those 
drawings?'' 

"  I  never  saw  anything  of  his  till  the  model  of 
the  hawk  to-day." 

"  He  may  have  burned  them.  Afterwards  he 
turned  his  back  on  the  whole  thing ;  he  wrote  to  me, 
to  Akatui,  and  said  he'd  done  with  dreams  and 
pretty  fancies.  It's  only  since  he  met  you  that  he's 
begun  a  little  modelling  again." 

"  It's  too  late  now,"  she  said  unsteadily.  "  He'll 
never  be  the  same  again." 

"  Nothing  that  gets  a  soul  ever  is  the  same 
again." 

She  flared  up  in  sudden  anger. 

"  Ah,  that  is  the  arrogance  of  all  you  people  with 
causes.  No  one  has  a  soul  unless  they  go  in  for  your 
politics.  It's  like  the  missionaries  with  their  Chris- 
tianity; you  force  your  light  on  people  that  nature 
never  meant  for  it — and  they  die!" 

"  There's  some  truth  in  that,"  he  assented  placa- 
bly ;  "  only  you've  got  the  wrong  end  of  the  stick. 
Russians  do  have  a  hard  time  when  they  get  a 
conscience;  they've  not  had  centuries  of  inoculation 


OLIVE    LATHAM  89 

like  the  rest  of  us.  But  I  don't  think  you'd  find 
Volodya  would  go  back  to  his  old  self,  if  he  could. 
Anyhow,  there's  no  use  in  discussing  that;  and  I 
want  to  speak  to  you  about  a  practical  question. 
When  are  you  going  to  England?" 

"  I  thought  of  going  when  we  leave  here,  at  the 
end  of  the  month.  My  people  would  like  to  have 
me  home  as  soon  as  possible." 

"  I  want  to  ask  you  not  to  go.  I  think  it  will  be 
better  if  you  stay  with  him  this  autumn." 

The  colour  faded  out  of  her  cheeks. 

"  You  think  he  is  ...  in  danger  ?" 

"  No;  but  I  would  rather  you  stayed  if  you  can." 

"Why?" 

He  was  silent. 

"  I  am  not  a  child,"  she  said  after  a  moment ; 
"  and,  as  I  told  you,  I  don't  easily  cry.  I  think  you 
owe  me  a  straight  answer.  What  is  it  I  have  to  be 
prepared  for?" 

"  I  don't  want  you  to  be  over  anxious ;  but  I  am 
not  satisfied  about  his  health." 

"  But  the  last  time  you  sounded  him  you  told  me 
he  was  better." 

"  Better  for  the  time.    Can  you  stay?" 

"  Of  course  I'll  stay.  But  if  anything  goes  wrong 
— really  wrong,  I  mean — may  I  send  for  you?" 

"  I  am  a  busy  man,  as  you  know,  and  I  don't 


90  OLIVE    LATHAM 

easily  get  permission  to  travel.  But  I'll  come  at 
Christmas  if  I  can.  Don't  mention  this  conversa- 
tion to  anyone.    Now  we  had  better  go  in." 

When  they  entered  the  house  everyone  had  gone 
to  bed.  He  lighted  the  candles  on  the  hall-table,  and 
handed  Olive  hers. 

"  Shall  I  see  you  before  I  start?" 

"  Oh  yes,  I'm  always  up  early." 

"  Good-night,  then." 

She  hesitated,  then  put  down  her  candlestick. 

"  Dr.  Slavinski  .  .  ." 

He  turned  to  her  with  a  smiling  face. 

"Yes?" 

"  I  ...  I  was  a  brute  just  now.  It's  so  new  to 
me,  all  this  cruelty  and  horror;  and  then  I  find 
myself  growing  cruel  too  .  .  .  and  saying  things 
that  it  makes  me  sick  to  remember.  I  said  a  hideous 
thing  to  you.  .  .  ." 

His  hand  had  clenched  itself  slowly  on  the  table; 
otherwise  he  had  not  moved. 

"  I  .  .  .  am  sorry,"  she  said,  touching  his  fingers. 

The  sweat  broke  out  on  his  forehead.  He  pulled 
the  hand  sharply  away,  and  she  heard  the  sound  of 
his  quick,  heavy  breathing.  She  drew  back  slowly, 
with  dilated  eyes. 

"  Have  I  offended  you  ?  You  are  the  only  friend 
I  can  count  on  here ;  please  .  .  ." 


OLIVE    LATHAM  91 

"  My  dear  Miss  Latham,  what  have  I  got  to  be 
offended  about?  Of  course  you  can  count  on  me. 
And  don't  get  scared  about  Volodya ;  he  may  come 
through  after  all.    Good-night.'* 

Vladimir  was  reading  in  his  room.  As  Karol 
came  in,  he  looked  up  smiling. 

"  Hullo,  old  man !  have  you  had  a  good  time?" 

*'  First-rate,"  said  Karol,  sitting  down  and  rolling 
a  cigarette.  "  Moonlight  and  screech-owls  and 
everything  complete.  It's  all  very  well,  but  I  must 
get  back  to  work ;  holidays  can't  last  for  ever.  But 
that's  a  good  girl  of  yours,  Volodya — quite  a  nice 
girl." 


CHAPTER    V 

Karol  left  Lyesnoye  early  in  the  morning.  The 
whole  family,  with  the  exception  of  Petya,  assembled 
in  the  porch  to  see  him  off;  and  he  drove  away 
down  the  avenue,  looking  back  at  the  waving  hands 
and  handkerchiefs  with  a  smiling  face,  that  grew 
suddenly  old  and  strained  and  haggard  when  the 
branches  of  the  lime-trees  shut  him  out  from  view. 

He  was  not  given  to  grumbling  at  the  hardness  of 
his  luck,  even  when,  as  now,  it  seemed  to  him  unrea- 
sonably hard.  And,  after  all,  there  were  compensa- 
tions. However  scurvily  the  fates  might  have 
treated  him  in  other  ways,  they  had  at  least  granted 
to  him  a  long  and  sufficient  training  in  self  control, 
certainly  a  thing  likely  to  come  in  useful  now.  A 
man  afflicted  with  a  hopeless  passion  for  the  woman 
whom  he  knew  to  be  the  solitary  joy  left  to  a  friend 
whose  life  he  had  ruined  was  fortunate  if  he  had 
learned  beforehand  not  to  wince  at  things.  At  any 
rate  he  had  managed  to  come  through  with  decency, 
and  that  was  the  principal  thing.  But  for  the  one  in- 
stant when  the  touch  of  Olive's  fingers  on  his  hand 
had  taken  him  unaware,  he  had  never  lost  his  entire 

command  over  both  face  and  voice ;  and  neither  she 
92 


OLIVE    LATHAM  93 

nor  Vladimir  had  guessed  his  wretched  secret. 
Now  that  the  strain  was  over,  he  reahzed  suddenly 
how  tired  he  was;  so  tired  that  he  could  care  for 
nothing  in  the  world  beyond  the  mere  relief  of 
knowing  that  he  need  not  see  her  again  till  Christ- 
mas. He  leaned  back  in  the  cart,  and  stared  with 
blank  eyes  at  the  drifting  fog. 

She  was  right,  confound  her,  if  she  had  been  a  bit 
brutal  in  her  way  of  putting  things.  When  you 
came  to  think  of  it,  she  had,  for  a  person  of  such 
wide  and  comprehensive  ignorance,  an  abominable 
knack  of  hitting  the  nail  on  the  head.  It  was  quite 
true  that  he  had  carried  his  light  into  dark  places, 
and  that  the  glare  of  it  had  burned  up  a  beautiful 
thing  planted  by  some  unhappy  accident  in  his  path. 
He  was  too  merciful  to  tell  her  she  was  right,  and 
too  accomplished  a  liar  to  let  her  guess  it;  but  it 
was  true,  all  the  same.  Looking  back  now,  at  thirty- 
four,  on  the  series  of  magnificent  and  pitiful  mistakes 
which  made  up  the  sum  of  his  youth,  he  saw  the 
winning  over  of  Vladimir  as  the  most  tragic  of  his 
early  successes.  In  those  days  (how  long  ago,  how 
shadowy  they  were !)  it  has  seemed  to  him  the  most 
splendid. 

The  whole  thing  had  come  of  the  humanitarian 
fit  which  had  attacked  him  in  youth.  A  belief  in 
universal  brotherhood  and  the  forgiveness  of  sins 


94  OLIVE    LATHAM 

seemed  to  be  as  inevitable  at  a  certain  stage  of 
mental  growth  as  distemper  in  a  puppy.  Fortu- 
nately one  grew  out  of  it,  like  the  puppy ;  but  it  was 
no  joke  while  it  lasted,  and  he  had  taken  it  badly. 
Taught  from  his  babyhood,  in  the  strict,  old-fash- 
ioned Polish  way,  to  loathe  and  despise  all  things 
Russian,  he  had  discovered,  at  twenty-one,  that 
national  hatreds  are  played  out  and  that  all  men 
are  brothers.  At  that  time  he  was  acting,  very  suc- 
cessfully, as  a  political  missionary  to  his  own  folk, 
spreading  the  gospel  of  national  independence 
among  his  fellow- Poles  scattered  about  the  cosmo- 
politan Gehenna  of  St.  Petersburg.  He  broke  away 
gradually  from  the  traditions  of  his  family  and  race; 
and  flinging  aside  as  musty  prejudice  the  lessons  of 
a  century's  experience,  told  the  grandfather  who  had 
adopted  him  when  the  last  insurrection  had  left  him 
an  orphan  that  to  him  nothing  human  was  alien, 
that  he  cared  for  neither  Pole  nor  Russian,  but  only 
for  the  soul  in  both.  Certainly  he  was  very  young, 
and  also  very  much  in  earnest. 

He  remembered,  as  if  it  were  yesterday,  how  the 
old  man  had  looked  up  from  his  books  of  devo- 
tion and  answered  with  a  stately  and  indulgent 
patience : 

"  Yes,  yes,  there  are  lots  of  fine  theories  about ; 
it's  natural,  when  one  is  young.     But  you'll  come 


OLIVE    LATHAM  95 

back  to  your  own  folk  in  the  end.  They  always  do 
if  they're  sound." 

"  You  brought  me  up  to  think  that  Russians  have 
only  teeth  and  stomachs,"  Karol  remembered  saying 
hotly.  ''  And  it's  not  true;  they  have  souls,  just  as 
we  have." 

"  Surely,  my  lad,  surely,"  the  grandfather  had 
answered,  crossing  himself  with  a  hand  crippled 
by  old  bayonet-wounds.  ''  But  leave  God  and  the 
Blessed  Mother  to  save  the  souls,  and  do  you  keep 
clear  of  the  teeth." 

But  to  keep  clear  of  them  was  not  in  Karol's 
nature.  He  was,  indeed,  in  those  callow,  fledgling 
days,  beautifully  indifferent  to  the  precise  cost  of 
things.  He  had  accepted,  very  early,  the  general 
axiom  that  an  idea,  like  any  other  thing,  if  worth 
having,  is  likely  to  be  expensive ;  and  had  definitely 
made  up  his  mind  that  he  was  ready  to  face  what- 
ever personal  pain  or  loss  might  be  the  price  of  his 
vocation.  That  any  part  of  the  cost  might  fall  upon 
others  had,  at  that  stage  of  his  development,  simply 
not  occurred  to  him.  He  went  about,  therefore,  like 
Diogenes  with  the  lantern,  looking  for  a  Russian 
with  a  soul. 

Two  years  of  his  youth  passed  in  a  superb  and 
futile  dream  of  using  Russian  hands  to  avenge  his 
country's  wrongs,  of  raising  up  champions  for  her 


96  OLIVE    LATHAM 

from  among  the  children  of  her  enemies.  Then  he 
came  across  Vladimir. 

The  mature  and  practical  Karol  whom  Akatui 
had  cured  of  dreaming  would  have  left  this  virgin 
savage  nature  in  peace  with  its  joy  of  life,  its  half 
unfolded  wings,  its  gorgeous  ignorance.  But  to  the 
missionary  Karol  of  twenty-three  it  seemed  no  sacri- 
lege to  handle  and  improve  so  beautiful  a  creature. 
Of  sculpture  he  knew  nothing,  and  little  of  human 
beings ;  and  he  looked  upon  it  as  a  splendid  privilege 
to  pluck  this  white  thing  from  the  filth  it  had  grown 
among,  and  offer  it,  as  a  pearl  of  great  price,  to  the 
goddess  of  his  worship.  And  the  result  had  been 
the  inevitable  one,  the  logical,  simple,  merciless 
action  of  Western  thought  upon  an  Eastern  mind. 

To  Vladimir,  once  the  moral  sense  had  been 
awaked  in  him,  the  irresponsible  artist  life  for  which 
alone  nature  had  fitted  him  was  no  longer  possible. 
Yet  among  the  Polish  rebels  to  whom  Karol  intro- 
duced him,  he  found  himself  a  stranger,  a  half-caste 
Asiatic,  shut  out  from  the  understanding  of  their 
inner  life  by  the  limitations  of  his  fatal  Russian 
inheritance,  a  strain  of  yellow  blood.  When 
released  from  prison  he  broke  off  all  relations  but 
those  of  personal  intimacy  with  his  Polish  friends, 
and  joined  his  wrecked  life  to  such  pitiful  remnant 
of  civic  conscience  as  was  left  in  Russia  itself.    The 


OLIVE    LATHAM  97 

premature  attempt  to  awaken  self-respect  in  a 
people  satisfied  as  yet  with  Mongolian  ideals,  faded 
out  miserably;  and  Vladimir,  not  fortunate  enough 
to  die  quickly  like  most  of  his  companions,  saw  the 
things  that  had  been  sacred  to  him  choked  in  blood 
and  dirt,  in  persecution  and  cowardice,  in  quarrels 
and  intrigues  and  the  betrayal  of  comrades.  Now, 
in  a  world  of  triumphant  corruption,  of  blatant  and 
shameless  jobbery,  he  and  such  as  he  remained,  here 
and  there  solitary,  tragic  figures,  utterly  faithful 
and  utterly  useless.  They  could  never  become  Euro- 
peans; Russia  was  all  the  world  to  them,  and 
Russia  had  no  place  for  them  to  breathe  in,  no  work 
for  them  to  do. 

Well,  it  was  lucky  that  there  was  Olive ;  Vladimir 
would  have  one  little  ray  of  personal  happiness  at 
the  last.  Karol's  own  position  was  of  less  impor- 
tance; a  Pole,  with  a  great  industrial  movement 
growing  under  his  hands,  could  not  get  on  with- 
out personal  happiness;  he  had  other  things  to 
take  its  place.  And  by  Christmas,  perhaps,  he  might 
have  got  accustomed  a  bit,  might  be  able  to  meet 
her  without  having  to  keep  the  rein  so  tight.  If 
only  she  wouldn't  look  at  one  in  that  grave,  con- 
scientious, maddening  way.  .  .  . 

Anyhow,  there  were  four  months  of  respite,  and 
crowds  of  things  to  do.     The  Dombrova  miners' 

7 


98  OLIVE    LATHAM 

organization  had  sent  him  a  report ;  he  would  have 
to  hunt  up  a  man  to  put  things  a  bit  straight  there. 
And  then  the  new  monthly  paper  that  he  had  started 
was  badly  in  want  of  funds,  and  he  must  find  a 
better  sub-editor.  ...  As  for  his  personal  mis- 
fortune— well,  yes,  it  was  bad  enough.  It  seemed 
an  unnecessary  brutality  that,  after  keeping  clear  of 
emotional  complications  all  these  years,  he  must  go 
under  now  before  just  this  woman,  of  all  the  women 
in  the  world.  But  what  has  a  man  been  through 
Akatui  for,  if  he  has  not  learned  how  to  stand 
straight  under  any  brutality  of  men  or  gods  ? 

That  was  the  odd  thing  about  Akatui:  the  way 
it  would  jump  up  in  one's  memory  without  any 
particular  cause,  and  make  the  things  one  happened 
to  be  thinking  about  or  worrying  over  at  the 
moment  seem  small  and  far  away.  Yet  it  was  just 
the  small  things  in  the  life  at  Akatui  that  had 
this  trick  of  coming  back ;  long- forgotten,  shadowy 
trifles,  suddenly  fresh  and  new,  distinct  in  every 
outline.  The  big  things  seldom  came  back;  they 
lay  still,  buried  very  deep  and  waiting  their  turn. 
This  time  it  was  not  Akatui  itself,  but  a  detail  of 
the  march  out  to  it,  eight  years  ago,  that  came  back 
so  vividly. 

It  was  just  beyond  Krasnoyarsk.  He  and  several 
of  the  others  had  been  down  with  typhus  fever, 


OLIVE    LATHAM  99 

caught  on  the  way,  and  the  escort  had  gone  on  with 
the  rest  of  the  party,  leaving  them  in  the  infirmary. 
There  he  had  learned  the  news  of  his  sister's  suicide. 
By  the  time  they  were  able  to  march  again  and  the 
next  escort  picked  them  up,  winter  had  come  on, 
and  the  frozen  road  rang  like  glass  under  the  hoofs 
of  the  struggling  baggage-horses.  There  were  sev- 
eral invalids,  two  of  whom  were  women,  so  the  few 
places  in  the  baggage-carts  were  always  full.  As 
for  him,  he  was  quite  well  again,  and  sure  he  could 
walk.  But  that  day's  march  was  a  long  one,  over 
sixteen  miles,  and  the  east  wind,  full  of  sharp  ice- 
needles,  drove  straight  in  their  faces  and  delayed 
them;  so  that  when  the  sun  set  they  were  still  an 
hour's  march  from  the  wayside  barracks  where  they 
were  to  sleep.  He  was  unlucky  too ;  he  must  have 
arranged  his  right-leg  wrapper  badly,  for  it  had 
slipped  out  of  place,  and  the  ring  of  the  fetter,  sliding 
up  and  down  as  he  walked,  had  rubbed  a  sore  on 
his  ankle.  He  remembered  with  an  extraordinary 
clearness  the  exact  sensation  of  the  iron  band 
scraping  at  each  step,  backwards  and  forwards 
across  the  wound.  There  seemed  no  logical  reason 
why  just  that  particular  pain  should  fix  itself  so 
definitely  in  his  memory;  but  every  detail  of  that 
afternoon  was  clear :  the  perspective  of  the  straight 
road,  gray  in  the  early  twilight;    the  snow-laden 


100  OLIVE    LATHAM 

pine-branches  tossed  by  the  wind;  the  persistent, 
regular,  unconscious  moaning  of  a  sick  woman  in 
the  baggage-cart ;  the  sense  of  isolation,  of  endless- 
ness, of  tramping  on  to  all  eternity  in  a  separate 
hell  of  his  own.  Then  he  had  waked  up,  lying  on 
his  back  on  the  road,  half-choked  with  bad  brandy, 
and  had  seen  the  officer  in  command  stooping  over 
him,  red-faced  and  plethoric,  and  the  escort  staring 
like  stuck  pigs.  They  all  looked  to  him  as  much 
alike  as  so  many  Chinese  idols,  rather  the  worse 
for  wear.  He  remembered  one  of  his  companions,  a 
feverish  little  consumptive,  nicknamed  ''  The  Squir- 
rel" for  his  bright  eyes  and  fuzzy  head,  saying  in  a 
thin,  husky,  cheerful  voice  (good  old  Squirrel,  he 
had  grit  enough  to  be  always  cheerful,  right  down 
to  the  last)  :  "  Why,  Karol,  Karol,  we  can't  have 
this!  If  you're  going  to  set  up  fainting-fits,  what 
are  the  rest  of  us  to  do  ?" 

Karol  had  taken  unreasonable  offence,  and  pro- 
tested indignantly.  He  had  never  fainted  in  his 
life;  he  supposed  he  was  not  a  common-law  felon 
to  go  in  for  damned  nonsense  of  that  sort.  Couldn't 
the  God-forsaken  idiots  see  he  had  slipped  on  the 
ice  and  banged  his  head  a  bit?  A  man  might  slip, 
mightn't  he,  on  these  confounded  roads?  And  he 
had  scrambled  up  in  a  hurry,  ridiculously  eager  to 
prove  the  accusation  false.     Then,  apparently,  he 


OLIVE    LATHAM  101 

had  fainted  again,  for  the  next  things  he  remem- 
bered were  the  poisonous  air  of  the  barrack  where 
he  was  lying,  staring  stupidly  at  the  dirty  rafters 
overhead,  and  the  hissing  sound  of  water  boiling 
over  on  to  the  red-hot  iron  of  the  stove.  They  had 
laid  him  down  on  one  of  the  wooden  sleeping- 
benches,  with  his  coat,  neatly  rolled  up  for  a  pillow, 
under  his  head;  and  somebody  was  bathing  his 
ankle ;  the  Squirrel,  perhaps,  but  he  was  far  too  lazy 
to  turn  round  and  look.  Afterwards  he  lay  for  a 
long  time,  hours — or  was  it  only  minutes? — in  a 
state  of  imbecile  passivity,  counting  the  vermin 
crawling  up  the  wall ;  counting  them  by  dozens,  by 
scores,  by  hundreds;  entangling  himself  in  absurd 
calculations  about  the  tangents  of  the  angles  at 
which  they  crawled  and  the  square-root  of  the  num- 
ber of  their  legs;  and  breaking  off  from  time  to 
time,  to  assure  himself,  over  and  over  and  over 
again,  that  nothing  really  mattered,  that  Wanda 
was  dead,  and  safe,  and  out  of  it  all,  that  he  needn't 
worry  about  her  any  more. 

Well,  well;  and  here  was  he,  at  thirty- four  and 
with  more  work  on  his  hands  than  any  one  man 
could  get  through,  wasting  his  time  turning  over  a 
miscellaneous  rubbish-heap  of  dead  and  gone 
memories.  Jolly  good  training  all  that  had  been, 
anyway;    a  bit  rough,  of  course,  but  a  man  would 


102  OLIVE    LATHAM 

be  a  fool  not  to  appreciate  his  luck  in  having  had 
it  while  he  was  young.  It  was  not  every  fellow 
that  got  the  chance,  before  starting  on  the  serious 
business  of  life,  to  find  out  exactly  how  much  he  was 
worth  and  what  his  nerves  were  made  of  inside. 
Two  or  three  years  of  that  sort  of  thing  made  a 
man  sure  of  himself,  made  him  safe,  for  the  rest  of 
his  life,  from  ever  being  afraid  of  anything  again. 
But,  God,  how  it  had  hurt  at  the  time !  .  .  . 

Olive  and  Vladimir  spent  the  morning  in  the 
pavilion.  He  was  anxious  to  finish  the  model  of  the 
hawk  as  soon  as  possible,  and  had  asked  her  to 
sit  by  him  while  he  worked.  For  three  hours  they 
scarcely  spoke ;  both  were  absorbed,  he  in  his  model- 
ling, she  in  reading  and  answering  her  home  letters. 
A  large  batch  had  come  by  the  cart  which  was  taking 
Karol  back  to  the  district  town.  Father,  mother  and 
sister  had  all  written.  In  her  last  letter  she  had 
spoken  of  coming  home  in  a  fortnight,  and  the  replies 
were  full  of  their  delight.  It  would  be  hard  for  them 
to  learn  now,  without  a  word  of  explanation,  that 
her  return  was  put  off  till  Christmas  at  the  earliest. 
And  yet,  to  explain  by  letter  would  be  impossible. 
She  was,  on  the  whole,  a  bad  correspondent;  and 
her  letters  were  usually  very  short  and  stiff;  not 
from  any  want  of  affection  for  her  kindred,  but 


OLIVE    LATHAM  103 

from  a  certain  emotional  shyness.  Even  an  instant's 
expansion  was  rare  with  her;  and  to  write  down 
a  loving  word,  and  see  it  staring  blackly  from  white 
paper,  was  to  her  a  most  difficult  thing.  To-day, 
however,  she  forced  herself  to  write  long  letters, 
wrapping  in  as  much  extraneous  gossip  of  botany 
and  scenery  as  possible  the  bald  announcement  that 
the  friend  whom  she  had  come  out  to  nurse  was  in 
a  more  serious  state  of  ill-health  than  she  had  known 
of,  and  that  she  must  stay  on  indefinitely.  When 
she  came  home,  she  added,  they  should  hear  all 
about  it. 

Then  she  began  a  letter  to  Dick.  Writing  to  him 
was  easier,  for  there  was  no  need  of  explanation. 
He  had  written  her  a  long,  brotherly  letter,  full  of 
cheerful  gossip  about  parish  work  and  the  local  flora 
at  Heathbridge,  and  opinions  on  the  water-rate  and 
George  Meredith's  last  book.  For  some  reason, 
inexplicable  to  herself,  Dick's  letters  were  more  com- 
fort to  her  in  these  weeks  of  wearing  anxiety  than 
any  other  thing.  Yet  she  had  little  to  say  to  him, 
and  her  interest,  even  in  the  rare  species  of  toad- 
flax which  he  had  found  in  the  bit  of  waste 
ground  behind  the  churchyard  wall,  could  only 
struggle  faintly  to  live  under  a  dead  weight  of 
depression. 

"  Olive,"  said  Vladimir. 


104  OLIVE    LATHAM 

She  looked  round.  He  was  wiping  the  clay  from 
his  hands. 

"  Come  and  look,  will  you?" 

The  model  of  the  hawk  was  finished.  She  stood 
a  long  while  before  it  without  speaking.  When  he 
turned  to  look  at  her,  there  was  a  pitiful  little  con- 
traction at  the  corners  of  her  mouth. 

"Yes?"  he  said.     "Something  wrong?" 

"  No,  no ;  it's  beautiful ;  but  it's  so  hopelessly, 
awfully  dead." 

"  So  much  the  better  for  all  little  chickens." 

"  What  do  the  chickens  matter  ?  They'll  never 
have  wings  like  that." 

"  Uncle  Volodya !"  cried  a  voice  outside. 

Vladimir  opened  the  door.  His  eldest  nephew, 
Boris,  was  shivering  in  the  fog  with  a  woebegone, 
miserable  face. 

"  Uncle  Volodya,  papa's  gone !" 

"  Gone  where  ?"  Olive  began,  and  stopped  sud- 
denly. Vladimir's  face  showed  her  that  he  under- 
stood where. 

"  What  horse  has  he  taken?" 

"  Itsek's  old  white  mare." 

"  When  was  it  found  out  ?" 

"  Only  just  now.  We  thought  he  was  down  at 
the  new  clearing,  and  when  Uncle  Vanya  came  in 
and  said  he  wasn't  there,  Auntie  sent  me  round  to 


OLIVE    LATHAM  105 

Itzek.  He  must  have  gone  before  we  were  up  this 
morning.  Auntie's  crying  in  the  kitchen.  She  says 
there'll  be  no  money  to  get  us  new  boots  for  the 
winter." 

The  boy  began  to  sob.  Vladimir  stroked  his  head 
tenderly. 

"  There,  there,  my  lamb ;  don't  cry.  I'll  go  after 
papa  and  bring  him  back.  Does  Itzek  know  which 
road  he's  taken  ?" 

'*  The  low  wood-path." 

"  Is  that  open  now  ?" 

"  Yes,  the  water's  all  drained  away." 

"  Then  he'll  be  in  town  before  I  can  catch  him 
up.  Olive,  look  after  the  children  for  me ;  and  don't 
let  Auntie  talk  about  it  before  the  little  ones.  You 
won't,  Borya,  I  know." 

"  Of  course  I  shan't." 

"  It  will  be  all  right,"  Olive  said,  in  her  soothing 
voice.  "  Borya's  got  as  much  sense  as  a  grown-up 
man;  he'll  help  me  look  after  the  little  ones.  Sup- 
pose you  take  them  out  to  play,  Borya,  while  I  go 
and  see  to  Auntie.  Volodya,  you  had  better  come 
in  with  me;  I'll  get  you  some  lunch  before  you 
start."    * 

"  I'll  come  in  presently;  I  must  just  see  about  a 
horse.  Don't  get  anxious,  I  shall  be  back  some  time 
to-morrow." 


106  OLIVE    LATHAM 

He  stooped  to  whisper  a  few  comforting  words 
to  the  boy,  who  had  left  off  crying  now,  and 
looked  less  frightened.  Then  he  laid  a  wet  cloth 
carefully  over  the  clay  model. 

"  You  see,"  he  said,  turning  to  Olive  with  a 
smile ; ''  the  chickens  do  matter,  after  all." 

The  second  day  dragged  miserably  to  its  close. 
By  alternate  soothing  and  gentle  restraining,  Olive 
had  managed  to  keep  Aunt  Sonya  quiet,  and  had 
even  got  the  household  work  done  somehow;  so 
far,  the  younger  children  knew  nothing  of  any  trou- 
ble in  the  family.  But  now  the  old  lady  was 
becoming  restless  and  excited  again ;  and  every  hour 
it  was  more  difficult  to  prevent  her  from  talking, 
in  the  presence  of  the  children,  about  their  father's 
vice. 

"  Six  o'clock,  already !  And  Volodya  was  to  have 
been  back  this  morning.  You  may  depend  on  it,  my 
dear,  something  has  happened.  I  always  knew  it 
would  end  badly.  Volodya's  too  harsh  with  him; 
he  was  always  so  hard;  and  now  perhaps  poor 
Petya  has  done  himself  a  mischief,  and  we  sit 
here.  .  .  ." 

She  began  to  cry  aloud,  like  a  peasant  woman. 

"  Children,"  said  Olive  in  clear,  incisive  tones ; 
"  run  to  the  three  fir-trees  and  see  if  your  uncle's 


OLIVE    LATHAM  107 

horse  is  in  sight.  Now,  which  can  get  there  fastest  ? 
One,  two,  three !" 

All  but  Boris  scampered  off  at  once.  He,  with 
a  serious,  unchildlike  glance  at  Olive,  went  silently 
on  with  his  bread  and  jam. 

"  My  dear !"  The  old  lady  left  off  crying  to  scold. 
"  How  can  you  make  them  run  races  like  that  in  the 
middle  of  their  supper?     It's  so  bad  for  them." 

"  Less  bad  for  them  than  to  hear  that  sort  of 
talk,"  said  Olive  calmly.  "  Let  me  give  you  another 
cup  of  tea." 

Aunt  Sonya  began  to  cry  again. 

"  Anyone  can  see  you've  never  known  what  trou- 
ble is,  or  you  wouldn't  be  so  hard." 

"  Borya,"  said  Olive;  "  give  me  your  aunt's  cup, 
will  you  ?  There's  nothing  to  be  upset  about,  auntie. 
Volodya  has  probably  been  kept  a  little  longer  than 
he  expected;  perhaps  the  road  is  flooded  again." 

But  the  old  lady  only  sighed  more  heavily  and 
shook  her  head. 

"  And  Vanya  never  coming  in  to  dinner !  Who 
knows.  .  .  ." 

A  sharp  scream  from  outside  made  them  all  start. 
Boris  sprang  up  and  ran  to  the  door,  but  Olive  was 
before  him.  She  pushed  him  back  gently,  went  out, 
and  shut  the  door  behind  her. 

Vanya,  with  his  cap  awry  and  his  boots  covered 


108  OLIVE    LATHAM 

with  mud,  was  standing  in  the  porch,  holding  by  the 
collar  a  bedraggled,  whimpering,  barefooted  peasant 
boy.  As  Olive  opened  the  door  behind  him,  he 
brought  his  clenched  first  down  heavily  on  the  dirty 
shock-head. 

"  I'll  show  you  how  to  laugh  at  your  betters !  Fm 
drunk,  am  I?    Eh?    Drunk?" 

The  big  fist  rose  for  another  blow.  Olive  stepped 
forward  silently  and  caught  the  lifted  arm  with  her 
strong  hand.  He  wrenched  himself  free,  and  turned 
on  her,  swearing  ferociously.  His  face,  at  other 
times  vacantly  mild,  was  flushed  with  drink  and 
hideous  with  a  wild-beast  rage. 

"  Go  away,"  said  Olive  to  the  boy,  who  was  cling- 
ing to  her  skirt.     "  Make  haste !" 

He  fled,  whining  and  snuffling.  Vanya  seized 
Olive  roughly  by  the  shoulders. 

"  Ah,  it's  you,  is  it  ?  Look  at  the  fine  lady !  Too 
tender-hearted  to  see  a  dirty  ragamuffin's  ears 
boxed!    All  right,  my  dear;   give  me  a  kiss." 

He  thrust  a  hot,  red  face  against  hers.  She 
turned  her  head  a  little  away  to  avoid  the  reek  of 
spirits,  and  gave  a  dexterous  sideways  twist  to  the 
arm  she  held.  His  grasp  on  her  shoulder  relaxed, 
and  she  slipped  quickly  aside. 

"  Take  care,"  she  said  cheerfully ;  "  there's  a  step. 
Yes,  we'll  see  about  all  that  presently.     Just  come 


OLIVE    LATHAM  109 

in  here  first ;  I  can't  talk  to  you  in  the  passage.  The 
key?  Yes,  that's  your  key.  Let  me  open  the 
door.  Do  you  want  to  kiss  me?  Wait  a  minute, 
then." 

The  next  instant  she  had  pushed  him  into  his 
bedroom  and  locked  him  in. 

She  leaned  panting  against  the  lintel.  He  was 
powerfully  built,  and  though  her  training  had  given 
her  the  mastery,  the  struggle  had  cost  her  a  sprained 
finger. 

He  was  now  trying  to  kick  the  door  down,  yelling 
imprecations  and  foul  language.  Aunt  Sonya  came 
hurrying  up,  and,  as  usual,  burst  into  tears. 

"  My  dear,  my  dear,  I  thought  he  would  have 
killed  you!" 

"  Nonsense,"  said  Olive,  straightening  herself  up. 
"  Do  you  think  I've  never  managed  a  tipsy  man 
before?  My  hand's  a  bit  hurt,  though;  I'll  just 
bathe  it.  Go  and  finish  your  tea,  will  you?  Don't 
be  frightened,  Borya ;  it's  all  right  now." 

There  was  a  clatter  of  hoofs  on  the  stones  outside, 
and  Borya  ran  out.  Vladimir  lifted  the  youngest 
child  down  from  his  saddle;  the  others  were  all 
clustered  about  him,  quite  ignoring  their  own  father, 
who  dismounted  in  silence  and  handed  over  the 
miserable  hired  mare  to  one  of  the  peasant  boys 
lounging  about  the  yard. 


110  OLIVE    LATHAM 

"  Take  her  back  to  Itzek/'  he  said  huskily,  and 
went  into  the  house  without  another  word. 

Vladimir  entered  the  dining-room  with  a  child  on 
each  shoulder,  and  the  other  three  clinging  round 
him.  His  face  was  quite  colourless,  with  black- 
ringed  eyes. 

"  Oh,  my  dear,  my  dear !"  cried  Aunt  Sonya,  run- 
ning up  to  him,  ready,  as  always,  for  an  emotional 
scene.  "  How  long  you've  been !  and  we  were  so 
fearfully  anxious!  Have  you  brought  him  back 
safe?  I  never  slept  a  wink  last  night  for  thinking 
of  it.    Is  he  .  .  :' 

"  Wait  a  minute,  auntie,"  Vladimir  interrupted  in 
a  choked  voice. 

He  sat  down  at  the  table,  panting  heavily  for 
breath.  Presently  a  fit  of  coughing  began,  always 
a  terrible  thing  with  him.  The  children  stood  round, 
staring  silently,  with  big,  frightened  eyes.  Fortu- 
nately Olive  came  in,  and,  seeing  at  a  glance  how 
utterly  worn  out  he  was,  brought  him  some  tea 
before  she  spoke  at  all. 

"  What  is  the  matter  with  your  hand?"  he  asked, 
putting  down  the  cup. 

She  had  tied  a  bandage  round  the  injured  place. 

"  I  hurt  my  finger ;   it's  nothing  much." 

"Where  is  Petya?" 

"  He  has  shut  himself  up  in  his  room.  No,  sit 
still  and  rest  for  a  minute." 


OLIVE    LATHAM  111 

He  had  risen,  putting  her  hand  aside. 

''I'm  quite  fresh  now.  Come  out  here;  I  want 
you." 

She  followed  him  into  the  hall. 

"  Petya  mustn't  be  left  alone  just  now.  He  has 
made  two  attempts  at  suicide  to-day." 

''  After  you  got  him  away?" 

"  Once  in  the  tavern  where  I  found  him ;  he  tried 
to  hang  himself.  And  then  on  the  way  home  he 
got  in  front  of  me  and  made  a  dash  for  the  lake. 
You  know  that  steep  place.  I  must  sit  up  with  him 
to-night.    Keep  auntie  quiet,  if  you  can." 

"  You  were  up  all  last  night,  I  suppose?" 

"  I  was  searching  for  him  till  two  in  the  morning. 
Then  I  couldn't  get  him  away.  He  had  got  with 
three  young  beasts  from  the  garrison,  and  they  had 
betted  with  their  women  they  would  win  his  dead 
wife's  miniature  from  him." 

"Did  they  get  it?" 

"  Yes.  It's  the  only  thing  he  never  would  stake 
till  now.    I  got  it  back,  though." 

''Did  you  buy  it  back?" 

"  I  knocked  one  down,  and  the  others  gave  it  up. 
I  paid  them  for  it  afterwards,  of  course.  You  had 
better  leave  me  alone  now,  dearest ;  I  must  find  out 
what  he's  doing." 


112  OLIVE    LATHAM 

She  kissed  him  and  turned  away.  He  knocked 
at  his  brother's  door. 

''  Petya!     Petya!   let  me  in,  will  you?" 

''  Go  away,"  a  curious,  muffled  voice  answered 
from  within.    ''Go  away;  let  me  alone." 

There  was  a  violent  rain  of  blows  and  kicks  on 
the  door  of  the  next  room.  The  drunken  man,  who 
had  lapsed  into  silence,  burst  out  swearing  again  at 
the  sound  of  voices  near  him. 

''  She's  locked  me  in !"  he  yelled,  pounding  on 
the  door  with  fists  and  feet.  "  Do  you  hear  that? 
The  English  devil  has  locked  me  in — me,  a  noble- 
man. .  .  ." 

''  Petya !"  Vladimir  called  in  a  sudden,  hard  voice. 
"Come  out!" 

The  gambler  appeared  on  the  threshold  of  his 
room.  He  had  thrown  off  his  riding-coat,  but  had 
neither  changed  his  clothing  nor  washed.  His 
hands  were  dirty  and  trembling,  his  hair  matted 
with  sweat,  his  clothing  awry.  He  looked  at  his 
brother's  stern  face  with  a  vague,  terror-stricken 
stare. 

Olive,  hearing  the  noise,  had  come  hastily  back, 
and  she,  too,  shrank  a  little  at  the  sight  of  Vladi- 
mir's face.     He  was  looking  at  her  bandaged  hand. 

''  I  must  deal  with  the  other  beast  now,"  he  said, 
and  unlocked  Vanya's  door. 


OLIVE    LATHAM  113 

The  raging  brute  within  sprang  at  Olive  with  a 
howl.  She  stepped  quietly  aside,  and  Vladimir 
caught  him  by  the  wrist  and  flung  him  back  into  the 
room. 

"Lie  down,"  he  said;  "and  be  ashamed,  if  you 
can." 

His  eyes  were  blazing  with  anger.  Vanya  stared 
at  him  an  instant,  open-mouthed ;  then  shrank  down 
and  huddled  on  the  floor,  weeping  aloud. 

"  Lie  down,"  Vladimir  said  again. 

The  doleful  creature  obeyed  without  a  word. 
Vladimir  locked  the  door  and  turned  with  the  key 
in  his  hand  to  Petya,  who  stood  by,  silent,  looking 
on  the  floor. 

"  Have  you  seen  Olive's  hand?" 

The  gambler  slowly  raised  his  eyes  and  dropped 
them  again.  A  dull  red  crept  over  his  face  in 
patches. 

"  Vanya  did  that  while  I  was  scouring  the  coun- 
try after  you.  I  suppose  she  was  defending  your 
children  for  you." 

The  unrestrained  sobbing  wail  of  the  impris- 
oned drunkard  sounded  monotonously  through  the 
door: 

"  Volodya,  don't  be  angry ;  Volodya,  for  Christ's 
sake!" 

Petya  put  up  a  shaking  hand  to  his  throat.     He 


114  OLIVE    LATHAM 

was  trying  to  speak,  but  his  lips  trembled  so  that 
the  words  would  not  come. 

"  I  .  .  .  told  you,"  he  said  at  last ;  "  you  should 
have  let  me  go  .  .  .  over.  It  was  the  only 
thing.  .  .  ." 

Vladimir  gave  a  little  laugh. 

'*  An  inquest,  to  round  the  thing  off?" 

At  that  Olive  interfered,  feeling  that  this  scene 
must  be  put  a  stop  to,  at  all  costs.  To  her,  there 
was  something  immodest  in  the  completeness  of  the 
wretched  man's  disgrace;  it  was  like  seeing  a  fel- 
low-creature in  the  stocks.  She  stepped  forward 
and  took  the  key  from  Vladimir. 

"  Look  here !"  she  said,  turning  to  Petya. 
"  What's  the  use  of  all  this  ?  Volodya  has  had  no 
food  or  sleep  since  yesterday,  and  I  suppose  you 
haven't  either.  I  don't  want  to  have  him  ill  again. 
Just  take  the  key  and  be  responsible  for  keeping 
Vanya  quiet,  will  you?  I'll  bring  your  supper  to 
your  room  if  you  would  rather  be  alone  this  evening. 
Come,  Volodya." 

The  gambler's  hand  closed  mechanically  over  the 
key.  He  stood  silent,  not  moving  a  muscle,  till 
the  girl  was  out  of  sight.  Her  steady  eyes,  neither 
reproachful  nor  contemptuous,  burned  him  up  with 
shame.  He  understood  quite  clearly,  that  he,  like 
the  whining  drunkard  behind  the  locked  door,  was 


OLIVE    LATHAM  115 

to  her  not  a  human  being,  but  a  case.  Even  his 
brother's  cold  and  scorching  anger  was  easier  to 
bear  than  this  professional  tolerance,  this  pitying, 
assured  aloofness  of  the  practical  philanthropist, 
who  has  seen  all  the  failures  and  temptations  of  man- 
kind, and  suffered  none  of  them. 


CHAPTER    VI 

The  next  day  the  household  had  returned,  out- 
wardly, to  its  normal  condition.  Aunt  Sonya, 
indeed,  was  quite  cheerful  again,  and  as  garrulous 
as  a  magpie.  Petya,  haggard  and  taciturn,  went 
about  his  work  as  usual,  and  even  succeeded  in 
making  Vanya  work.  At  early  dinner  he  scarcely 
spoke  an  unnecessary  word,  and  Vanya  sat  beside 
him,  silent  too.  Olive  kept  the  children  talking 
merrily,  to  distract  their  attention  from  their  father ; 
and,  when  the  meal  was  over,  proposed  that  she 
should  show  them  how  to  make  English  toffee  in 
the  kitchen.  The  weather  was  growing  steadily 
worse,  and  there  could  be  no  question  of  taking 
them  for  a  walk. 

"  Volodya,"  she  said,  pausing  in  the  doorway, 
with  the  children  dancing  and  jumping  round  her; 
"  I  wish  you'd  go  and  lie  down  a  bit." 

He  was  looking  grievously  ill.  The  fatigue  and 
strain  of  the  last  two  days  had  told  on  him  heavily, 
and  he  had  been  coughing  a  long  time  in  the  night. 

''  I  would  rather  help  make  toffee,"  he  answered, 

picking  up  the  youngest  child  and  perching  it  on  his 

shoulder.     "  Mayn't  I  join?" 
Ii6 


OLIVE    LATHAM  117 

"  Well,  wait  till  we  get  the  materials  ready.  Now, 
chicks,  wash  your  hands,  all  of  you.  Yes,  Fm 
coming,  auntie." 

She  put  a  shawl  over  her  head,  and  ran  out  in  the 
pouring  rain  to  the  kitchen  building.  Through  a  veil 
of  driving  vapour  she  could  see  the  dim  figures  of 
Petya  and  Vanya  struggling  towards  the  granary. 
The  watchdogs  had  shrunk  into  their  kennels,  and 
whimpered  piteously  as  she  passed.  It  was  terrible 
weather. 

When  everything  was  ready  in  the  kitchen,  she 
ran  back  into  the  house  to  call  the  children.  They 
were  all  in  the  dining-room,  clustered  round  Vladi- 
mir's chair;  and  as  she  entered,  shaking  raindrops 
from  her  shawl,  she  heard  his  voice.  He  was  telling 
a  fairy-story,  and  she  stopped  on  the  threshold  to 
listen. 

".  .  .  So  when  the  Green  Caterpillar  had  crawled 
up  the  bulrush,  and  curled  himself  round  the  little 
spike  at  the  top,  he  could  see  quite  a  long  way,  right 
over  the  heads  of  all  the  smaller  things.  He  saw 
a  big,  wide  place  that  he  had  never  seen  before.  It 
was  called  the  To-morrow  Country,  because  all  the 
children  in  it  were  grown  up  and  all  the  caterpillars 
had  turned  into  butterflies.  (That's  what  happens 
to  caterpillars  when  they  grow  up,  you  know. 
What  is  it  ?    '  And  to  children  ?'    Well,  yes,  to  some 


118  OLIVE    LATHAM 

children.)  And  in  the  middle  of  the  To-morrow 
Country  there  was  a  big  tree — the  biggest  tree  in 
all  the  world.  The  trunk  of  it  held  up  the  sky, 
and  the  roots  of  it  kept  the  earth  together  so  it 
shouldn't  tumble  in  when  you  jump  very  hard;  and 
the  shade  of  the  branches  was  so  thick  and  dark 
that  every  morning  at  bedtime  (yes,  morning  is 
bedtime  if  you're  a  star)  all  the  baby  stars  flew 
down  to  hide  in  them,  and  tucked  their  little  heads 
under  their  wings,  and  went  to  sleep  till  even- 
ing. .  .  .  Ah,  there's  Olive!  Come  along  and 
make  toffee." 

"The  toffee  will  wait,"  she  answered,  laughing; 
"  and  I  want  to  hear  about  the  Green  Caterpillar." 

"  Ah,  my  dear,  what's  the  use  ?  Our  caterpillars 
won't  turn  to  butterflies.  Sashka,  am  I  to  take  you 
pickaback?  Hold  on  tight,  then.  Yes,  my  son,  if 
I  were  the  general's  big  black  horse,  you  might  be 
the  general  riding  on  top,  very  proud  and  fine ;  but 
I'm  only  the  army  baggage-mule,  and  you're  a  sack 
of  potatoes,  so  take  care  I  don't  kick  you  off." 

When  the  happy,  sticky  children  were  pulling  the 
hot  toffee  into  strings,  Vladimir  asked  Olive  to 
come  with  him  to  the  pavilion.  It  was  the  last  week 
of  their  stay,  and  he  was  anxious  to  make  a  model 
of  her  hand  before  going  back  to  town.  "  I  can 
keep  it  by  me  when  you're  gone,"  he  said. 


OLIVE    LATHAM  119 

She  looked  doubtfully  out  of  the  window. 

"  But  just  see  how  it's  pouring !  I  don't  mind  a  bit 
about  getting  wet,  but  I  don't  think  you  ought  to." 

"  Oh,  nonsense !  it's  only  a  minute's  walk.  Come, 
dear;  we  shall  have  so  little  time  together,  and  it's 
the  only  place  where  we  can  be  alone." 

They  went  off  under  the  same  big  umbrella,  which 
both  together  could  scarcely  hold  against  the  violent 
wind  and  rain.  Reaching  the  pavilion,  they  lighted 
the  stove,  and  dried  their  clothes  against  the  fire. 
Then  he  got  out  his  modelling-clay,  and  began  to 
work.  Olive  sat  still,  her  eyes  on  the  glowing  coals. 
So  methodical  a  person  was  naturally  a  good  sitter; 
her  hand,  lying  on  the  table,  never  moved  from  the 
position  the  sculptor  had  chosen.  But  her  forehead 
puckered  itself  into  anxious  lines;  she  was  ponder- 
ing how  to  tell  her  lover  that  she  had  decided  to 
stay  with  him  till  Christmas,  without  letting  him 
know  what  Karol  thought  of  his  condition.  For 
her  own  part,  she  would  have  preferred  to  tell  him 
the  whole  truth;  if  his  case  was  a  hopeless  one,  he 
had  the  right  to  know  it.  But  if  a  man's  doctor 
objects,  what  can  one  do?  Presently  she  raised  her 
head  with  a  quick  gesture  of  decision. 

"Volodya.  .  .  ." 

He  looked  up,  then  put  down  his  clay  and  came 
across  to  her. 


120  OLIVE    LATHAM 

"  Sweetheart,  what  troubles  you?" 

"  Volodya,  I'm  not  going  back  to  England  the 
week  after  next;   I'm  going  to  stay  with  you." 

"  To  .  .  .  stay  with  me?" 

She  put  her  arm  round  his  neck  as  he  knelt  beside 
her. 

''  You  remember,  I  said  I  wouldn't  marry  you 
till  I  had  told  my  people  at  home  and  given  them 
time  to  get  accustomed?  I  thought  that  was  only 
fair  to  them;  but  I've  been  thinking  about  it  since. 
You  know,  you're  my  business  in  life  now;  I'll 
marry  you  as  soon  as  you  like." 

He  made  no  answer  for  a  while. 

"  Poor  little  girl !"  he  said,  stroking  her  hair. 
''  So  Karol  has  been  talking  to  you  about  it?" 

She  released  herself  with  a  start.  '*  Why  do  you 
think  that?    Has  he  talked  to  you?" 

''  Karol  and  I  have  talked  about  many  things. 
How  much  has  he  told  you,  dear?" 

"  Only  that  he  is  .  .  .  not  satisfied  about  your 
health,  and  that  he  thinks  I  ought  to  stay  till  the 
winter.  Volodya,  you  and  I  are  grown-up  and 
responsible  human  beings;  don't  you  think  we  had 
better  be  straight  with  each  other?  I  don't  know 
how  far  he  thinks  your  lungs  are  affected;  the 
London  specialist  said  it  was  a  serious  case,  but  not 
hopeless.     Of  course,  I  understand  that  it  would  be 


OLIVE    LATHAM  121 

a  crime  for  a  man  in  your  state  to  have  children, 
but  that  doesn't  take  away  my  right  to  be  with  you 
and  nurse  you  when  you  are  ill,  and  give  you  what 
happiness  and  .  .  .  comfort  I  can.  After  all,  you 
are  the  whole  world  to  me ;  nothing  can  alter  that." 

She  ended  a  little  unsteadily. 

"  Dear  heart,"  he  said  at  last;  "  it  is  I  who  must 
be  straight  with  you.  It  was  not  my  health  that 
Karol  was  thinking  about." 

"  He  said  .  .  ." 

"  Yes,  yes,  I  know ;  and  I,  too,  had  meant  not  to 
tell  you.  There's  a  good  deal  of  trouble  just  now, 
and  some  danger." 

"  Do  you  mean  about  .  .  .  political  things  ?" 

"  Yes ;  a  man  who  has  been  arrested  lately  turns 
out  to  be  .  .  .  not  quite  the  man  he  was  taken  for. 
He  may  do  a  lot  of  mischief  by  not  knowing  how 
to  hold  his  tongue." 

"  But,  Volodya,  why  do  you  stay  here  with  a  thing 
like  that  hanging  over  you?  If  you're  in  danger  of 
.  .  .  of  being  arrested  again,  why  don't  you  come 
to  England  w4th  me  before  it's  too  late?" 

''  Just  because  there  is  danger,  my  dearest.  If  I 
were  to  go,  it  would  bring  suspicion  on  others.  I 
could  no  more — what  is  it  you  say  in  England? — 
rat? — now  than  you  could  have  run  away  in  the 
middle  of  the  small-pox  after  undertaking  the  work." 


122  OLIVE    LATHAM 

*'  I  never  asked  you  to  rat.  It's  only  that  I  don't 
understand.  Of  course  if  it's  a  case  of  simple  duty, 
like  that,  there  is  nothing  more  to  be  said.  But  are 
you  quite  sure  it  is?" 

"  Quite  sure.  I  must  go  to  town  the  first  day 
that  I  can  get  permission  to  travel.  It's  only  that 
I  am  waiting  for;  otherwise  I  should  have  gone 
back  directly  I  heard  anything  was  wrong." 

"When  did  you  hear?" 

"Two  days  before  Karol  left;  I  told  him  about 
it,  and  I  suppose  that's  what  made  him  talk  to  you. 
There,  love,  you  know  as  much  now  as  I  have  a 
right  to  tell  you.  Don't  be  frightened;  very  likely 
nothing  will  happen  at  all.  And  now  I  have  some- 
thing to  ask  of  you.  I  want  you  to  go  home  to 
England.  If  this  blows  over,  I  will  send  for  you 
in  a  few  months,  and  we  will  be  married." 

"And  if  not?"  She  sat  straight  up,  and  faced 
him  with  a  challenging  look. 

"  If  not,  sweetheart,  you  can't  help  me ;  you'll 
only  injure  your  nerves  uselessly  by  seeing  brutal 
things." 

"  And  you  would  rather  I  left  you  and  any  brutal 
things  there  may  be  to  fight  it  out  together?" 

"  Not  if  there  were  anything  you  could  do." 

"  Volodya,  I  don't  know  what  you  understand  by 
love  between  a  man  and  a  woman.     I  know  what  I 


OLIVE    LATHAM  123 

understand  by  it:  you  are  mine,  and  things  that 
happen  to  you  are  my  things.  They  won't  be  any 
less  brutal  for  my  not  seeing  them.  If  I  am  to  lose 
you,  I  will  stay  now,  and  have  all  of  you  that  I  can." 

*' As  you  will,  dearest;  but  for  marrying,  it  is 
better  not  just  now;  you  will  be  safer  as  a  British 
subject  if  anything  should  go  wrong  with  me.  You 
would  lose  the  protection  of  your  Embassy  by  marry- 
ing me,  and  it  is  well  to  have  that  behind  you." 

"  I  don't  mind  losing  it." 

"  No,  but  I  mind  for  you.  And  it  is  not  mar- 
riage that  matters;   it  is  love." 

They  sat  silent  for  a  long  time,  hand  in  hand. 

"  You  see,"  she  said,  lifting  her  head  from  his 
shoulder ;  "  there  is  one  thing  about  all  this  that  is 
very  hard  for  me.  If  my  life  is  to  be  made  desolate, 
it  will  be  for  the  sake  of  a  thing  that  is  utterly 
foreign  to  me,  a  thing  I  know  nothing  about  and 
can't  understand." 

"  Dear,  I  have  not  the  right  to  speak  about  ..." 

"Oh,  what  does  that  matter?  Of  course  you 
can't  tell  me  other  people's  secrets ;  and  if  you  could, 
it  wouldn't  help  me.  If  you  are  taken  from  me, 
what  difference  will  it  make  for  me  to  know  the 
particular  thing  you  are  accused  of?  What  I  want 
is  an  assurance,  a  certainty  to  go  on  living  with." 

"A  certainty?" 


124  OLIVE    LATHAM 

She  turned  and  looked  at  him. 

"  That  you,  in  your  own  heart,  beHeved  it  was 
worth  while." 

His  face  hardened  suddenly;  the  soul  that  had 
been  so  close  withdrew  itself  behind  locked  doors. 

"  I  suppose  a  man's  personal  honour  and  self- 
respect  are  usually  worth  keeping." 

''  Ah,  be  honest  with  me !"  she  cried  out.  "  Be 
honest!  The  question  is  not  what  you  are  to  do 
now;  of  course  I  understand  you  must  be  faithful 
to  a  thing  you  have  once  undertaken.  I  don't  raise 
that  point  at  all;  I  want  to  know,  if  you  could  go 
back  to  the  beginning — if  it  were  to  do  again  ..." 

He  stopped  her  with  a  hand  against  her  lips. 

"  Hush,  hush !  If  we  could  go  back  to  the  begin- 
ning, which  of  us  would  have  been  born  ?" 

She  held  her  breath  in  unknown  fear.  After  a 
pause  he  spoke  again. 

"  The  question  that  you  have  a  right  to  ask  me 
is :  Do  I  regret  what  I  have  done  with  my  life  ?  And 
to  that  I  can  answer  as  before  my  own  conscience: 
I  have  nothing  to  regret.  I  and  the  others  are 
failures;  we  have  not  done  what  we  tried  to  do. 
We  were  not  strong  enough,  and  the  country  was 
not  ready;  therefore  we  go  under;  that  is  plain. 
But  I  would  rather  fail  than  not  have  tried;  and 
the  people  that  come  after  us  will  not  fail.     There; 


OLIVE    LATHAM  125 

are  you  satisfied?  And  now,  for  God's  sake,  don't 
let  us  ever  talk  about  this  again." 

Her  natural  instinct  of  reserve  responded  at  once ; 
she  released  herself  from  his  arm  and  rose. 

"  By  the  way.  Dr.  Slavinski  told  me  you  had  a 
lot  of  your  old  drawings.  Have  you  burned  them  ? 
If  not,  I  wish  you'd  show  them  to  me." 

Apparently  she  had  stumbled  upon  the  wrong 
subject;  a  curious  irritation  showed  itself  at  once 
in  his  face  and  voice. 

"  Karol  might  as  well  have  held  his  tongue ;  it's 
not  his  way  to  be  over-talkative  generally.  What 
do  you  want  to  see  all  that  old  rubbish  for?" 

"  Only  because  I  take  a  friendly  interest  in  you 
and  your  belongings." 

"  My  belongings !  .  .  .  they're  an  edifying  lot, 
aren't  they?" 

She  had  put  on  her  matter-of-fact  manner. 

"  I  can't  tell  about  the  drawings  till  I  see  them ; 
and  as  for  your  other  belongings,  we  came  here  in 
the  rain  to  get  rid  of  them,  not  to  talk  about  them." 

''  Quite  right,  Britannia ;  you  shall  see  the  draw- 
ings, though  they're  not  worth  looking  at.  You 
are  a  bit  like  Britannia,  really ;  very  magnificent,  but 
just  a  little  .  .  ." 

"  Dense?  Yes,  Dick  Grey  used  to  tell  me  I  was 
dense.     It  has  its  compensations.     Don't  you  think 


126  OLIVE    LATHAM 

you'd  better  dust  that  portfolio  before  you  drag  it 
out?  My  dear,  let  me  do  it,  please;  that's  not  the 
way  to  handle  a  duster." 

The  drawings  had  been  carelessly  tossed  into  the 
portfolio;  some  were  crumpled,  some  dirty,  a  few 
torn  and  burned  at  the  edges.  Most  of  them  were 
rough  chalk  or  crayon  studies :  legs  and  arms ;  bits 
of  gnarled  tree-trunk  and  twisted  branches.  There 
were  a  few  sketches  of  village  life:  dogs  fighting; 
children  carrying  loads;  old  men  gossiping;  peas- 
ant women  drawing  water  at  the  well.  A  tense- 
ness of  effort,  a  vigorous  and  passionate  abundance 
of  life,  showed  everywhere  through  the  crude  and 
often  incorrect  drawing.  Even  Olive,  who  knew 
nothing  of  art,  could  see  that  the  muscles  of  the 
limbs  were  sometimes  wrongly  placed ;  but  the  vivid- 
ness, the  sense  of  strength  and  movement,  the  fierce 
determination  to  live,  which  animated  all  the  figures, 
might  have  made  a  better  critic  forget  the  technical 
defects. 

"  Did  you  never  see  anyone  or  anything  at  rest?" 
she  said,  putting  down  the  drawings.  "  All  these 
creatures  seem  to  live  in  a  hurricane." 

"  I  see  them  at  rest  now,  anyway." 

Her  eyes  followed  his  to  the  model  of  the  dead 
hawk. 

"  If  that's  what  you  call  rest  .  .  .  No,  don't 
burn  them." 


OLIVE    LATHAM  127 

She  had  taken  from  his  hand  a  large  roll  of  draw- 
ing-paper, tied  round  with  string,  and  was  unfasten- 
ing it. 

"  They're  nothing,"  he  said  quickly. 

She  looked  up. 

"  Do  you  mean  you  don't  want  me  to  see  them  ? 
I  beg  your  pardon." 

He  stood  for  a  moment  looking  away,  with  the 
roll  in  his  hand,  then  gave  it  back  to  her. 

"  I  don't  mind  your  seeing  them.  They're 
sketches  for  a  group  I  was  trying  to  do ;  then  I  got 
arrested,  and  it  was  never  finished.  I  was  ...  a 
good  bit  in  love  with  it  in  those  days.  If  I'd  ever 
done  anything,  it  would  have  been  that.  Yes,  look 
at  them." 

She  untied  the  roll  with  an  unaccustomed  sense 
of  timidity,  and  smoothed  out  the  sheets.  The  first 
one  contained  only  studies  of  detail:  hands,  out- 
lined limbs,  drapery  and  notes  of  historical  costume ; 
then  came  two  faces,  repeated  over  and  over  again. 
Some  of  the  attempts  were  half  rubbed  or  scratched 
out,  as  if  in  discouragement.  One  face  was  a  young 
woman's,  Eastern  in  type  and  regular  in  feature, 
always  with  a  profusion  of  barbaric  ornament  in  the 
head-dress,  always  with  the  same  fixed  look  of  wild- 
eyed  terror.  The  other  face  was  a  man's,  and  over 
this  one  Olive  lingered  for  a  long  while,  trying,  and 


128  OLIVE    LATHAM 

failing,  to  understand  its  expression.  The  last 
sheets  showed  the  woman  struggling  frantically  in 
the  arms  of  the  man,  who,  with  strained  muscles, 
had  lifted  her  from  the  ground,  and  seemed  about 
to  fling  her  violently  from  him. 

''  Tell  me,  Volodya,  what  does  it  mean?" 

He  took  a  volume  from  a  bookshelf,  and  came 
back,  turning  the  pages. 

"  I  wanted  to  illustrate  a  scene  from  a  lyrical  play 
that  appeared  some  twenty  years  ago." 

"  Won't  you  read  the  passage  ?  But  slowly, 
please;  Russian  poetry  is  so  diflicult." 

"  This  is  very  diflicult ;  it's  in  old  language,  and 
full  of  obsolete  forms.  It  is  about  Styenka  Razin, 
the  Cossack  who  led  the  peasant  revolt  in  the  seven- 
teenth century." 

"Your  Jack  Cade?  Yes,  I  remember.  Didn't 
they  roast  him  alive,  or  something  of  that  sort,  when 
they  caught  him?" 

"  They  did  various  things,  of  course.  Well,  this 
is  where  he  is  with  his  followers,  on  board  his  vessel 
on  the  Volga.  He  has  fallen  in  love  with  a  Persian 
princess  that  they  have  captured;  and  one  of  the 
elders  of  his  army  accuses  him  of  having  forgotten 
his  work,  and  of  thinking  only  about  the  woman. 
When  the  food  is  brought  in,  his  men  begin  to 
throw  offerings  of  bread  and  salt  into  the  river, 


OLIVE    LATHAM  129 

according  to  the  old  custom;  and  he  stops  them. 
Here  is  the  passage : 

"  '  Hast  thou  no  richer  gift  ?      Or  shall  she  thank  thee 
For  scraps  of  bread?     Is  bread  a  marvel  to  her? 
Can  she  not  break  our  ships,  if  she  would  eat, 
And  take,  the  mighty  one,  till  she  be  satisfied? 

{He  rises) 
Nay,  not  thus  meanly  shall  we  thank  our  mother; 
My  gift  will  please  her  better ;   it  is  precious. 

{He  turns  his  face  to  the  river) 
Oh,  thou  Volga,  mother  of  great  rivers. 
Always  hast  thou  sheltered  me,  hast  not  betrayed; 
Even  as  a  mother  hast  thou  cherished  me; 
Thou  hast  heaped  upon  me  fame  and  honour, 
Gold  and  silver,  wealth  of  precious  merchandise. 
Mother,  I  to  thee  have  given  nothing; 
Nothing  have  I  paid  for  all  thy  largesse. 
Now,  I  pray  thee,  scorn  thou  not  my  offering; 
Take  it,  breadgiver,  for  it  is  thine!' 

Then  he  snatches  up  the  girl  and  throws  her  into 
the  river  ..." 

"  Volodya,"  Olive  interrupted,  turning  to  look  at 
him  with  one  of  the  drawings  in  her  hands;  "I 
believe  there  is  genius  in  this." 

He  blazed  out  suddenly  in  a  way  that  she  had 
never  seen  before. 

"  Genius !  Every  crow  thinks  its  own  children 
white.  Can't  you  see  I  was  fooling — wasting  good 
paper  that  a  better  man  than   I   had  made,   just 

Q 


130  OLIVE    LATHAM 

because  I  was  born  a  gentleman,  and  had  nothing 
to  do  with  my  time  but  eat  food  I  hadn't  earned, 
and  think  myself  a  fine  fellow?  Which  way  is  it 
better  than  Vanya's  drink  or  Petya's  cards?  A  bit 
cleaner,  perhaps.  Do  you  know  what  the  folk  down 
in  the  village  call  my  messing  about  with  clay? 
'  The  fancies  of  the  quality.'  And  they're  right. 
They'd  be  right  if  they  cut  all  our  throats.  The  only 
excuse  for  our  existing  at  all  would  be  to  rid  them 
of  worse  parasites  than  ourselves;  and  that  we 
haven't  known  how  to.  We're  rotten,  all  of  us 
— rotten  through  and  through  with  laziness  and 
pride.    Ah,  the  fancies  of  the  quality !" 

He  tossed  the  drawings  back  into  the  portfolio, 
and  pushed  it  away.    Olive  stood  looking  at  him. 

"  When  you  talk  like  that,"  she  said  at  last,  "  I 
begin  to  wonder  whether  I  shall  ever  understand 
you  at  all.    I  simply  don't  know  what  you  mean." 

"  I  think  you  never  will." 

"Volodya!" 

He  stood  for  a  moment  by  the  window,  with  his 
back  to  her,  looking  out  at  the  driving  rain.  Then 
he  turned  round  with  a  shrug  of  the  shoulders. 

"  You  see,  my  dear,  it  doesn't  depend  on  you,  or 
on  me  either,  and  we  can't  help  it.  There's  a  radical 
difference  between  us ;  we  don't  dream  of  the  same 
kind  of  pig." 


OLIVE    LATHAM  131 

"  The  same  kind  of  .  .  .?" 

"  Ah,  you  haven't  read  '  Beyond  the  Barrier/ 
There's  a  story  in  it  of  a  Russian  in  Paris  who 
wakes  the  house  by  screaming  in  his  sleep;  he's 
had  a  nightmare  about  a  pig.  The  landlady  tells 
him:  that  often  happens  with  her  lodgers;  the 
slaughter-house  is  near,  and  the  pigs  squeak  in  the 
night.  '  Ah,  madame,'  he  says,  '  there's  a  difference. 
If  a  Frenchman  dreams  of  pigs,  it's  of  the  sort 
of  pigs  that  men  eat;  when  we  Russians  have  a 
nightmare,  we  dream  of  the  sort  of  pigs  that  eat 
men. 

"  I  can't  understand  what  you  mean,"  she  said 
again  heavily.  "  I'm  very  sorry,  but  I  can't  under- 
stand." 

He  turned  away  with  a  gesture  of  weary  impa- 
tience. 

"  Let  us  get  back  to  work.  How  should  you 
understand  ?" 

He  placed  her  hand  in  the  required  position,  and 
went  back  to  his  modelling.  Presently  he  pushed 
the  clay  aside. 

''  Oh,  what's  the  use?    I  can't  do  it." 

"  You're  too  tired  to  work  to-day ;  you  had  better 
leave  it." 

"  Do  you  think  it's  only  to-day?  Come,  we'll  go 
back  to  the  children." 


132  OLIVE    LATHAM 

She  put  the  shawl  over  her  head  and  took  up  the 
big  umbrella,  with  a  sense  of  relief.  The  presence 
of  outsiders  would  keep  her,  for  the  moment,  from 
being  dragged  beyond  her  depth. 

As  they  stepped  out  into  the  pouring  rain,  two 
figures  came  struggling  towards  them  up  the  hill. 
The  foremost  one,  a  coachman  in  the  national  dress, 
accosted  Vladimir. 

"  Would  your  honour  be  so  kind  as  to  give  trav- 
ellers a  shelter  for  the  night?  I'm  Prince  Repnin's 
coachman,  and  driving  one  of  the  visitors  to  the 
shooting-party  down  Toropetz  way.  A  fallen  tree 
in  the  road  has  upset  us  and  wrenched  a  wheel  off 
the  axle;  it's  a  mercy  we  didn't  all  go  head-first 
into  the  lake.  And  in  this  weather  ...  If  your 
honour  would  .  .  ." 

"  Is  anyone  hurt?" 

"  No ;  but  the  gentleman's  wet  and  cold,  and  it's 
a  long  way  to  the  place." 

"  Of  course  you  can't  go  on  to-night ;  you  must 
sleep  here.     How  many  are  you  ?" 

"  Three ;  the  gentleman  and  his  servant  and  I. 
They're  French  or  something;  I  can't  understand  a 
word  they  say.  I  left  the  servant  down  there  with 
the  horses.  Here's  the  gentleman;  perhaps  your 
honour  can  talk  to  him  ?" 

"  Please  come  in  out  of  the  rain,"  said  Vladimir 


OLIVE    LATHAM  133 

in  French.  *'  We  will  get  your  things  brought  up 
in  a  minute.  But  no,  I  assure  you  there  is  no  incon- 
venience at  all ;  we  are  accustomed  to  little  accidents 
in  this  wild  district.     Enter,  please." 

He  ran  across  to  the  house  with  the  coachman, 
leaving  Olive  to  look  after  the  traveller,  who,  still 
apologizing  for  his  intrusion,  threw  off  his  wet  cloak 
and  held  out  his  hands  to  the  fire.  He  was  a 
remarkable-looking  man,  Parisian  to  the  tips  of  his 
fingers,  with  fine  eyes  and  thick,  curling  white  hair. 
He  looked,  she  thought,  as  if  he  were  used  to  being 
called  "  Cher  maitre."  The  face  was  oddly  familiar 
to  her;  he  must  be  some  well-known  person  whose 
photographs  she  had  seen. 

"  Permit  me  to  introduce  myself,"  he  said.  "  My 
name  is  Duchamp." 

She  gave  a  little  start ;  it  was  no  wonder  that  she 
knew  the  face. 

"  M.  Leon  Duchamp,  the  painter?" 

He  bowed  again. 

''  My  friend  Prince  Repnin  invited  me  to  join  his 
autumn  shooting-party,  and  I  was  tempted  by  the 
opportunity  to  see  real  savage  forest.  I  have  never 
been  in  Russia  before,  and  speak  not  a  word  of  the 
language;  so  you  may  suppose  that  when  the  car- 
riage broke  down  in  this  wilderness  I  wished  myself 
safely  home  in  Paris.  I  am  most  fortunate  to  have 
found  such  hospitable  shelter." 


134  OLIVE    LATHAM 

"  They  are  preparing  your  room,"  said  Vladimir, 
coming  back,  out  of  breath  and  with  a  hand  to  his 
side.  ''  Will  you  sit  here  and  rest  by  the  fire  till 
supper  is  ready  ?  Your  servant  is  attending  to  your 
things." 

The  hot  colour  went  up  into  his  face  when  he 
heard  the  visitor's  name,  and  then  died  out  again. 
Leon  Duchamp  had  been  one  of  the  dreams  of  his 
youth.  "  If  I  can  once  get  to  Paris  to  Duchamp," 
he  used  to  think ;  ''  he  will  believe  in  me  and  help 
me  get  my  chance." 

The  painter  drew  his  chair  up  to  the  fire,  watching 
his  host  with  keen,  dark  eyes.  He  too,  like  Burney, 
had  noticed  at  once  the  haggard  beauty  of  Vladi- 
mir's head ;  and,  cold  and  tired  as  he  was,  his  fingers 
itched  to  make  a  sketch  of  it. 

"  But,  surely,  I  am  among  colleagues,"  he  said, 
catching  sight  of  the  modelling  clay.  '*  Monsieur  is 
a  sculptor?" 

Vladimir  stiffened  instantly. 

"  Only  an  amateur,  and  not  much  at  that." 

Duchamp  looked  a  little  surprised  at  the  icy  tone 
of  the  answer,  but  merely  said,  graciously : 

"  You  are  too  modest.  That  model  of  the  big 
bird  there  .  .  ." 

He  broke  off,  and  looked  at  it  with  a  growing 
interest  and  wonder. 


OLIVE    LATHAM  135 

"  It  is  your  work  ?  But  it  is  remarkable.  I 
assure  you  that  it  is  remarkable.  You  have  a  real 
talent,  without  doubt." 

''  You  are  indulgent,"  said  Vladimir  in  a  voice 
that  was  a  warning  to  go  no  further.  The  French- 
man threw  a  startled  glance  at  him. 

"  Pardon!"  he  murmured;  "  I  am  indiscreet." 

Olive  intervened  with  a  sort  of  desperation.  All 
this  was  to  her  intolerably  painful ;  she  plunged  hur- 
riedly into  the  first  subject  that  she  could  think  of. 

"  It  would  have  been  a  very  long  drive  for  one 
day,  to  Prince  Repnin's  place,  even  without  bad 
weather  and  accidents." 

"  Yes ;  I  inquired  before  starting  whether  there 
was  any  house  on  the  way  where  we  could  obtain 
shelter  in  case  of  necessity,  but  I  was  told  there 
was  none.  Naturally,  no  one  would  contemplate 
intruding  in  this  manner  into  a  private  dwelling- 
house.  Even  after  the  accident  the  coachman  was 
very  reluctant  to  trouble  you." 

"  It  was  not  a  question  of  troubling  us,"  Vladimir 
said  in  the  same  stiff  manner.  "  It  is  only  fair  to 
tell  you  that  people  avoid  this  house.  As  you  are  a 
foreigner  and  a  distinguished  man,  your  spending 
a  night  here  will  not  expose  you  to  any  serious 
unpleasantness,  but  you  may  possibly  be  called  upon 
to  give  explanations  to  the  police.      I  am  under 


136  OLIVE    LATHAM 

supervision  as  a  political  suspect  and  former  pris- 
oner." 

The  painter  listened,  at  first,  with  a  blank  look, 
then  his  face  lit  up  suddenly. 

"It  is  an  honour  for  me,"  he  said,  and  held  out 
his  hand.  "  We  of  the  older  generation  in  France 
have  also  suffered.  The  best  friend  of  my  youth 
died  in  New  Caledonia,  and  I — I  who  speak  to 
you  ..."  He  shrugged  his  shoulders.  "  I  was 
fortunate  in  escaping  notice.  I  have  survived,  to 
paint." 

Theophylacta  knocked  at  the  door,  and  Vladimir 
took  a  tray  from  her  hands. 

"  Your  room  is  ready,"  he  said ;  "  and  my  aunt 
thought,  as  you  have  been  out  in  the  wet,  a  little 
hot  wine  might  prevent  your  taking  cold." 

As  he  lifted  the  portfolio  off  the  table  to  make 
room  for  the  tray,  a  drawing  slipped  out  and  fell 
at  the  feet  of  the  visitor,  who  stooped  to  pick  it  up. 
It  was  one  of  the  attempts  at  a  head  of  Styenka 
Razin. 

"  Tiensl"  said  Duchamp. 

He  stood  looking  at  it  for  a  moment,  then  turned 
to  Vladimir  without  a  trace  of  his  gracious  Parisian 
manner. 

"  But  ...  it  was  not  you  who  did  this  ?"  he 
asked  in  a  curious,  sharp  voice. 


OLIVE    LATHAM  137 

"  I  did  it  long  ago,  when  I  was  quite  young." 

"  And  there  are  more?    I  may  see  them?" 

Vladimir's  face  had  gone  white  and  pinched  about 
the  nostrils. 

"  If  you  wish,"  he  said,  and  laid  the  portfolio  on 
the  table.  "  I  .  .  .  once  meant  to  bring  them  to 
Paris  for  you  to  see." 

"  And  why  .  .  .    ?" 

"  I  was  arrested." 

"Ah!    And  since  then?" 

Vladimir  looked  away  from  him,  then  laughed 
and  shrugged  his  shoulders. 

"  Well,  it's  a  bit  late  in  the  day  for  me  to  be 
thinking  about  an  artistic  career,  isn't  it?  This 
is  not  a  fairy-story  world,  and  I  am  thirty-two 
and  .  .  .  consumptive." 

The  painter  sat  down  and  opened  the  portfolio. 
For  some  time  he  examined  the  drawings  without 
speaking,  while  Olive  and  Vladimir  stood  by  the 
fire  with  lowered  eyes.  It  seemed  to  the  girl  after- 
wards that  she  had  lived  through  years  in  a  few 
minutes  of  silence.  At  last  Duchamp  rose,  and, 
crossing  to  the  other  table,  looked  closely  at  the 
model  of  the  dead  hawk. 

"  But  it's  a  crime !"  he  cried  out,  turning  sud- 
denly. ''You  hear?  ...  a  veritable  crime! 
Arrested !    And  all  that  lost  .  .  .    Ah,  what  a  coun- 


138  OLIVE    LATHAM 

try!  God,  what  a  country!"  He  threw  out  his 
hands  with  a  vehement  gesture.  "  And  you,  are  you 
not  also  culpable  ?  To  waste  your  life  for  plots,  for 
politics — you,  whom  the  good  God  made  a  sculptor  ? 
Ah,  for  example,  were  there  no  other  hands  but 
yours  .  .  .    ?    And  you  might  have  been  .  .  ." 

''  Hush !  don't  say  it,"  Olive  broke  in.  "  Don't 
tell  us  about  things  that  might  have  been ;  we  have 
got  to  live  with  the  things  that  are." 

Duchamp  stopped  short.  His  eyes  followed  hers 
to  Vladimir's  face. 

"  Mademoiselle  is  right,"  he  said,  and  closed  the 
portfolio.  "  I  abuse  your  patience,  talking  so  long. 
If  you  will  permit  me,  I  will  go  and  change  my 
clothing." 

Olive  went  across  to  the  house  with  him,  and  was 
immediately  fastened  upon  by  Aunt  Sonya,  who  was 
in  terror  lest  the  salad  should  not  be  up  to  the 
Parisian  standard.  When  supper  was  ready,  she  ran 
back  to  the  pavilion,  ostensibly  to  call  Vladimir,  but 
really  to  prevent  the  old  lady  from  doing  so. 

It  was  now  nearly  dark,  but  twilight  and  the  red 
glow  of  the  embers  showed  her  an  empty  room,  an 
open  portfolio,  and  a  stove  choked  with  half-burned 
paper.  She  stooped  down  slowly  and  pulled  out  a 
charred  and  crumpled  fragment,  on  which  she  could 
still  trace  the  struggling  figures  of  Styenka  Razin 
and  the  princess. 


CHAPTER    VII 

Christmas  passed,  and  Olive  was  still  with  her 
lover.  They  had  returned  to  St.  Petersburg  a  few 
days  after  Duchamp's  visit;  and  Vladimir  had 
taken  rooms  for  her  near  to  his,  with  quiet  and 
friendly  people.  Having  now  no  patients  to  work 
for,  she  plodded  wearily  on  at  Russian  grammar, 
history  and  literature,  while  the  weeks  dragged  into 
months. 

For  the  first  time  in  her  life  she  found  her  days 
too  long.  To  her  active,  definite,  and  practical  mind 
it  seemed  as  if  the  heaviest  blow  that  fate  could 
strike  would  be  more  bearable  than  this  life  of 
riddles  and  suspense,  of  helpless  waiting  in  the  dark 
for  a  shadowy  horror  that  might  never  come. 
Vladimir,  between  the  hack-work  at  which  he  earned 
his  bread  and  the  ''  business"  of  which  they  had 
tacitly  agreed  to  avoid  all  unnecessary  mention,  was 
so  much  occupied  that  they  had  little  time  together ; 
and  that  little  was  slowly  becoming  to  both  a  distress 
rather  than  a  solace.  In  the  strained  condition  of 
his  nerves  and  hers,  it  was  no  longer  possible  for 
them  to  enjoy,  as  in  the  old  days,  desultory  talk  of 
outside  matters;    yet  whenever  they  tried  to  speak 

139 


140  OLIVE    LATHAM 

of  anything  that  was  real  to  them,  one  or  the  other 
would  strike  against  an  unseen  barrier. 

Olive,  always  reserved,  grew  more  and  more  so 
under  the  chilling  influence  of  mystery  and  vague, 
cold  disappointment.  She  was  of  a  character  essen- 
tially stable  and  temperate.  To  fling  aside  the  habits, 
the  aims  and  professional  ambitions  of  all  her  youth, 
and  follow  her  lover  out  into  a  menacing  and 
unknown  world,  had  been  to  her  an  even  harder 
thing  than  most  women  would  have  found  it;  she 
lacked  the  perception  of  romance  which  might  have 
sustained  many  natures.  And  having  taken  so 
momentous  a  step  in  the  dark,  she  found  that  it  had 
led  her  nowhere.  Notwithstanding  the  love  between 
them,  unclouded  by  an  instant's  doubt  on  either  side, 
they  seemed  to  be  drifting  steadily  further  apart. 
She  would  have  been  content,  however  hopeless  her 
future  looked  to  her,  had  she  but  been  able  to  feel 
that  her  presence  was  any  real  comfort  to  him ;  but 
the  bitter  complaint :  ''  You  don't  understand !  you 
don't  understand !"  drove  her  back  upon  herself,  dis- 
couraged and  bewildered.  It  was  true;  she  under- 
stood only  that  he  suffered  and  that  she  could  not 
help  him. 

He  suffered,  indeed,  so  much  that  all  other  things 
were  blotted  out  to  him.  The  numbed  life  in  him 
had  stirred  again  at  her  coming,  and  she  had  brought 


OLIVE    LATHAM  141 

no  help.  His  days  went  by  in  a  blank  round  of 
mechanical  duties,  his  nights  in  raging  misery.  He 
longed  at  times  for  the  beast  to  spring  quickly,  and 
have  done  with  it;  so  mean,  so  poor,  so  empty 
seemed  the  hours,  any  one  of  which  might  be  the  last. 
He  looked  back  over  his  past  life,  and  saw  but 
ghostly  processions  of  dreams  unfulfilled,  of  statues 
unmodelled,  of  joys  untouched;  tragic  abortions  of 
the  things  that  might  have  been.  In  the  future 
waited  him  drudgery,  weariness,  the  old,  hard,  un- 
congenial duty,  the  old,  heavy  chain  to  drag;  then, 
perhaps,  an  obscure  and  useless  martyrdom  for  a 
faith  that  he  had  found  wanting,  and  beyond  that 
the  black  unknown. 

Now  that  the  danger  had  come  so  close  a  furious 
craving  took  hold  on  him  to  live  while  he  might. 
What  it  had  cost  him  to  refuse  the  girl's  offer  to 
marry  at  once  she  would  never  understand  as  long 
as  she  lived.  It  was  not  in  her  to  understand  those 
things;  elemental  passions  had  no  place  in  her 
ordered  life.  It  would  be  a  crime  to  force  upon 
her  his  selfish  longing  for  joy.  The  whole  thing 
was  hard  enough  for  her  already  without  this  other 
sacrifice. 

He  had  no  illusions  about  her  feeling  in  the  mat- 
ter. He  knew  that  she  loved  him  enough  to  give 
herself  at  any  moment  and  under  any  conditions  that 


142  OLIVE    LATHAM 

he  should  ask  it  of  her ;  but  he  knew  also  that  if  she 
did  so  it  would  be  in  the  same  spirit  in  which  she 
would  have  given  her  right  hand,  or  her  life,  to 
comfort  him.  He  had  won  her  uttermost  devotion, 
but  he  had  not  awaked  the  woman  in  her.  Though 
she  was  nearly  twenty-seven,  and  had  walked  for 
years  alone  and  open-eyed  among  human  lives,  and 
tragedies,  and  passions,  her  nature  had  still  the 
maiden  wholeness  of  a  child's;  and  he,  who  had 
struggled  and  starved  so  long,  would  starve  a  little 
longer  rather  than  disturb  her  peace.  It  would  be 
unfair  to  accept  so  much  from  her  if  he  had  to  die 
so  soon  and  leave  her  desolate.  But  there  were 
times  when  this  very  thought,  that  he  might  have  to 
die  so  soon,  swept  down  upon  him  with  a  terror 
of  emptiness,  with  a  mad  desire  to  seize  his  joy  and 
devour  it  in  secret,  so  that,  should  the  darkness  come 
swiftly,  he  might  have  lived  before  it  came,  if  only 
for  one  little  hour. 

But  that  coming  of  the  darkness  seemed,  after  all, 
unlikely.  Since  August  he  had  waited  with  strung 
nerves,  telling  himself,  night  after  night,  that  as  he 
had  lived  his  life  with  self-respect,  so  he  might  hope 
to  get  out  of  it  with  decency,  and  not  to  wince  when 
the  time  came;  and  that  this,  indeed,  was  the  only 
thing  of  any  consequence.  Now  January  was  here, 
and  he  was  still  waiting. 


OLIVE    LATHAM  143 

**  It  must  have  blown  over,"  he  said  to  OHve  one 
day  when  she  was  sitting  with  him  in  his  lodgings 
while  he  worked.  ''  If  it  were  coming  it  would  have 
come  before  now." 

She  scarcely  smiled  at  the  reassuring  words. 
Long  months  of  suspense  had  worn  the  spring  of 
her  nature,  and  it  no  longer  responded. 

''If  you  feel  sure  about  that,"  she  said,  ''  I  will 
go  home  and  see  my  people;  they  are  getting  so 
anxious  and  worried  about  me.    But  are  you  sure  ?" 

''  How  should  I  be  sure  ?  But,  you  see,  nothing 
has  happened  so  far.  You  had  better  go  home, 
dear ;  it  is  hard  on  your  people  to  wait  so  long." 

She  shook  her  head. 

"  I  have  told  you  that  I  will  not  go  while  there  is 
any  doubt.  Perhaps  you  and  your  friends  will  be 
able  to  find  out  soon  just  how  matters  really  stand." 

"  When  Karol  comes.  He  can  often  get  informa- 
tion about  our  affairs  that  we  can't  get  ourselves; 
he  has  friends  and  connections  everywhere." 

"  Will  he  come  next  week,  do  you  think  ?" 

"  Very  likely.  Now  that  the  Emperor  has  left 
town,  he  will  probably  get  permission  to  come." 

Vladimir  himself  had  just  been  expelled  from  the 
town  for  a  few  days.  This  happened  to  him,  as  to 
all  other  suspected  persons,  every  January,  before 
the  Emperor's  arrival  for  the  blessing  of  the  river 


144  OLIVE    LATHAM 

ice,  and  on  all  occasions  of  important  festivals  and 
ceremonies  throughout  the  year.  He  and  Olive  had 
spent  the  enforced  holiday  quietly  by  Lake  Ladoga, 
and  had  returned  to  town  when  the  pageant  was 
over. 

"  I  will  wait  till  he  comes,  at  any  rate,"  she  said 
in  a  dull  tone,  and  looked  out  of  the  window.  The 
pulse  in  her  throat  was  beating  heavily. 

"  Volodya,"  she  said  at  last;  "when  I  go 
home  .  .  ." 

He  was  sitting  at  the  table,  putting  a  cog-wheel 
into  the  plan  of  a  machine. 

"Yes?"  he  said. 

She  turned  her  head  and  watched  him  at  his 
work.  Unemotional  as  she  was,  the  sight  of  the 
sensitive,  wonderful  hands  that  had  found  no  better 
work  than  to  draw  cog-wheels  and  pumps  and  levers 
for  two  pounds  a  week  brought  sudden  tears  into 
her  eyes.  But  he  did  not  see;  his  head  was  bent 
down  over  the  plan. 

"  Yes  ?"  he  said  again. 

She  still  hesitated;  the  thing  seemed  so  horrible 
to  say.  When  she  said  it  at  last  it  sounded  quite 
dull  and  commonplace. 

"  Is  there  any  real  use  in  my  coming  back  ?" 

The  hand  holding  the  pencil  grew  rigid;  he  sat 
like  a  statue  and  made  no  sound. 


OLIVE    LATHAM  145 

"  Volodya,"  she  began  again  desperately.  He  laid 
down  the  pencil. 

"  No  one  but  yourself  can  judge  of  that,"  he 
said  in  a  still,  even  voice.  "  As  for  me,  all  the 
giving  between  us  has  been  on  your  side,  and  all  the 
receiving  on  mine.  It  is  clear  that  I  can  have  noth- 
ing to  say.  If  you  feel  that  you  have  made  a  mis- 
take .  .  r 

She  suddenly  remembered  telling  him  in  the  sum- 
mer that  he  was  the  whole  world  to  her.  It  was 
more  true  than  ever  now,  but  she  could  not  say 
it.    She  said  only,  in  a  lame  way : 

'*  Is  it  not  you  that  have  made  a  mistake?" 

He  was  silent. 

"You  see,"  she  added  drearily;  "you  have  told 
me  yourself,  so  often,  that  I  can't  understand." 

"  No,  you  can't  understand.  That  is  .  .  .  lucky 
for  you." 

He  rose  to  leave  the  room.  His  face  and 
movement  had  something  measured,  something 
that  terrified  her.  She  caught  his  arm  as  he  passed 
her. 

"  Oh,  it's  you  that  don't  understand !" 

He  seemed  to  stiffen  under  her  touch.  "  Per- 
haps," he  said.  "  But,  after  all,  it  matters  very  little 
which  of  us  it  is  that  fails  to  understand." 

"  Volodya !     Why  will  you  make  it  so  hard  for 

10 


146  OLIVE    LATHAM 

me?  Can't  you  see  Vm  only  trying  to  do  what  is 
right?" 

He  broke  into  a  Httle  quick  laugh  and  freed  his 
arm  from  her  hand. 

"  One  can  trust  you  to  think  always  of  what  is 
right,  my  dear;  but  .  .  .  not  quite  always  of  what 
is  bearable." 

Then  he  went  into  his  bedroom  and  shut  the  door. 

She  found  herself  panting  as  if  she  had  been 
running  too  fast,  and  sat  down  helplessly  at  the 
table. 

Someone  came  into  the  room  with  a  leisurely, 
heavy  tread.  "  The  maid  with  the  tea-urn,"  she 
thought,  bending  her  head  lower  over  the  unfinished 
plan. 

The  footsteps  paused  beside  her  chair,  and  she 
looked  up.  Karol,  very  big  and  quiet,  stood  looking 
down  at  her. 

"Ah!"  she  said  softly.    "You!" 

The  eyes  that  saw  everything  travelled  over  her 
face,  noting  how  thin  she  had  grown,  how  sleepless 
her  eyelids  looked,  how  the  line  of  her  mouth  had 
changed. 

"  Yes,  I  was  afraid  you'd  be  having  a  bad  time," 
he  said;  and  at  the  sound  of  his  lazy,  drawling 
speech  she  felt  comfo-rted  without  knowing  why. 
"  Is  Volodya  worse?" 


OLIVE    LATHAM  147 

"  Not  in  health,  I  think.    It's  not  that." 

He  waited,  patiently  observant,  guessing  before 
she  told  him  where  the  trouble  lay.  She  drew  in  her 
breath  tragically. 

"  It's  horrible  to  stand  by  and  see  him  like  this. 
It's  killing  him,  and  I'm  no  help  at  all;  I'm  worse 
than  useless." 

She  bent  her  head  again  over  the  plan. 

"  If  I  could  do  anything  to  help  him !  But  I  can't 
even  understand;  I  have  tried,  and  I  can't." 

"  Don't  you  think,"  Karol  said,  "  that  you  would 
do  better  by  just  accepting  that  as  a  fact,  and  not 
trying  so  hard?  People  manage  to  be  a  lot  of  help 
to  each  other  sometimes,  even  without  understand- 
ing all  those  difficult  and  complex  things." 

''  Not  I ;  I've  only  made  him  more  unhappy  than 
he  was  before.  Perhaps  he  will  feel  it  less  now  you 
have  come;  you  always  understand." 

He  smiled ;  and  she  realized  for  the  first  time  how 
stern  a  face  it  was  when  he  was  not  smiling. 

"  I  ?  Ah,  yes ;  it  is  my  trade  to  understand.  And 
then,  I've  had  plenty  of  practice." 

Vladimir  came  in  with  an  outstretched  hand  and 
a  brave  attempt  at  gaiety. 

"  Hullo,  Karol ;  we  didn't  expect  you  till  next 
week." 

"  They  signed  the  permit  for  this  week,  and  if 


148  OLIVE    LATHAM 

I'd  asked  to  have  it  changed  I  might  have  lost  it 
altogether.    Any  news  ?" 

''  No;  just  the  usual  jog-trot.  You're  looking  a 
bit  dragged,  old  man ;  overworked  ?" 

Olive  had  not  noticed  it  before ;  but  now  that  her 
attention  was  called  to  Karol's  looks,  she  saw  that 
he  was,  indeed,  not  quite  like  himself. 

He  stayed  chatting  with  them  for  a  few  minutes 
and  then  went  away,  saying  that  he  had  "  lots  of 
stupid  things  to  do,"  and  that  he  would  come  and 
spend  the  day  with  them  to-morrow.  He  had  taken 
the  same  lodging  as  before.  The  lovers  stood  silent 
for  a  moment  after  the  door  shut  behind  him. 

"  Olive,"  Vladimir  said,  in  a  hurried  way,  without 
looking  at  her.  "  I  beg  your  pardon  if  I  was  unkind 
to  you  just  now.  Of  course,  you  must  decide  as  you 
think  best.  I  know  the  whole  position  is  .  .  .  very 
hard  for  you  .  .  ." 

She  turned  and  clung  to  him  with  her  face  against 
his  arm. 

"  Nothing  is  hard  but  to  know  that  I'm  only 
hurting  instead  of  helping  you.  But  it  is  a  matter 
of  right  and  wrong.    What  can  I  do  ?" 

He  stood  holding  her  close  to  him. 

"  I  wish  you  would  try  to  explain  a  little,"  he  said 
at  last.  ''  We  seem  to  be  groping  in  the  dark,  and 
making  each  other  wretched  for  nothing." 


OLIVE    LATHAM  149 

"  You  see,  the  whole  thing  looks  to  me  wrong  as 
well  as  useless.  I  can't  believe  that  any  good  is  ever 
done  by  meeting  violence  with  violence.  If  the  gov- 
ernment is  brutal  and  senseless,  that's  all  the  more 
cause  why  you  should  be  guided  by  something  better 
than  anger.  It  all  seems  to  go  round  in  the  same 
vicious  circle;  because  they  have  done  you  hideous 
wrongs,  you  try  to  be  revenged;  they  strike,  and 
you  strike  back.  And  which  way  does  all  that  help 
the  people?" 

"  It's  not  a  question  of  revenge ;  it's  a  question 
of  loyalty." 

"  Loyalty  to  your  own  side ;  and  the  world  is 
none  the  better  for  your  taking  sides  so  bitterly.  I 
can't  .  .  ." 

Her  lips  began  to  quiver  again. 

"  I  don't  think  it  would  be  right  for  us  to  marry 
while  we  feel  differently  about  a  thing  that  is  so 
serious.  However  much  I  love  you,  I  should  be 
nothing  but  a  grief  and  a  discouragement  to  you 
once  I  can't  believe  in  your  work." 

He  stooped  and  kissed  her  hair. 

"  It  is  not  that  you  can't  believe,  my  heart ;  it's 
only  that  you  can't  understand.  What  did  you  say, 
Masha?    Someone  for  me?" 

The  maid  was  knocking  at  the  door.  He  went 
into  the  passage,  and  came  back  after  a  moment, 
with  an  anxious  look. 


150  OLIVE    LATHAM 

*'  I  must  go  out  at  once  on  business.  I'll  come 
round  to  your  place  when  I  get  back." 

"Shall  you  be  long?" 

"  I  hope  not;  but  I  may  be  kept." 

"  You  won't  get  wet,  will  you  ?  This  damp 
weather  is  so  treacherous." 

"  It  won't  last ;  we  shall  have  frost  again  before 
night,  I  think.    Good-bye,  dear." 

She  held  out  her  hand,  but  he  pulled  her  to  him, 
kissed  her  in  a  vehement,  fierce  way,  and  went  hastily 
out. 

She  walked  to  her  lodging  through  drizzling  sleet, 
got  out  her  Russian  grammar  and  dictionary  and 
the  book  that  she  was  in  the  middle  of  struggling 
with,  and  worked  for  three  hours.  Then  she  real- 
ized that  the  room  had  grown  very  cold,  and  that 
her  windows  were  frosted  with  ice. 

She  waited  for  Vladimir  till  the  evening.  Anxiety 
and  suspense  had  long  been  her  daily  companions, 
and  usually  she  was  patient  enough ;  but  when  eight 
o'clock  struck,  and  he  had  still  not  come,  she  went 
back  to  his  rooms  in  search  of  news. 

The  wet  and  snowy  pavement  of  a  few  hours  ago 
now  rang  under  her  feet,  hard,  slippery,  and  clear  like 
glass.  The  wind  had  veered  to  the  north-east,  and 
the  temperature  had  dropped  with  deadly  swiftness. 

Vladimir  had   not   returned,    and   after  making 


OLIVE    LATHAM  151 

what  preparations  she  could  in  case  he  should  come 
in  chilled,  she  sat  waiting.  At  half-past  nine  he 
dragged  himself  up  the  stairs  and  stumbled  in,  livid 
and  gasping  for  breath,  his  hands  like  a  dead  man's, 
his  beard  and  clothing  stiff  with  ice. 

"  Ah,  thank  God !"  he  murmured,  when  she  ran 
out  to  him. 

He  was  too  utterly  exhausted  to  do  anything  but 
abandon  himself  passively  to  her  ministrations.  It 
seemed  to  her  at  first  that  she  would  never  get  him 
warm  again.  Till  after  ten  o'clock  she  was  too  busy 
to  ask  him  what  had  happened,  and  he  too  weary  to 
talk. 

"  Now,"  she  said  at  last,  sitting  down  beside  his 
bed ;  "  you  may  tell  me  whether  anything  serious 
has  happened." 

"  I  think  it's  all  right  now ;  but  there  was  an  alarm 
among  some  of  our  people.  It  looked  rather  bad 
at  the  moment,  and  they  sent  round  for  me  in  a 
hurry.  Then  on  the  way  to  one  house  where  I 
had  to  go  I  found  a  spy  after  me,  and  it  took  me 
hours  to  get  rid  of  him." 

"  How  do  you  manage  to  get  rid  of  them?" 

"  You  walk  them  down ;  lead  them  a  wild-goose 
chase  all  over  the  town,  and  then  double,  the  way  a 
hare  does,  or  turn  into  a  courtyard  that  has  a 
passage  through  to  the  next  street.     You  see,  you 


152  OLIVE    LATHAM 

can't  go  to  another  man's  house  with  spies  behind 
you." 

''  Because  of  getting  him  into  trouble?" 

"  Of  course.  And  I  couldn't  get  rid  of  this  one. 
I  walked  till  we  were  both  wet  through;  then  the 
weather  changed." 

"  You  got  rid  of  him  at  last?" 

"  Oh,  yes ;  and  got  the  business  done ;  I  think 
everyone's  safe  now." 

"  Then  go  to  sleep.  I  shall  be  in  the  next  room 
if  you  want  me." 

"  But,  my  dear,  you  must  go  home  to  bed.  Why, 
what  a  fidget  you  are,  child!  There's  nothing 
wrong  with  me;  I  was  only  cold  and  tired." 

He  knew  as  well  as  she  did  the  danger  of  such  g 
chill  to  a  man  in  his  state  of  health.  But  as  he  chose 
to  take  it  that  way,  she  fell  in  with  his  mood,  and 
answered  lightly : 

"Of  course  it's  all  right ;  but  I'd  rather  stay  here, 
just  to  make  sure.  I  can't  help  being  a  fidget  if  I 
was  born  so." 

She  said  nothing  more  to  him,  but  sent  a  note  to 
Karol's  lodgings,  asking  him  to  come  at  once.  He 
was  out,  the  messenger  told  her,  and  would  not  be 
back  till  late.  She  waited  in  the  other  room,  step- 
ping softly  to  the  door  from  time  to  time  to  listen 
for  her  patient's  breathing.    About  one  in  the  night 


OLIVE    LATHAM  153 

she  heard  him  call  her  in  a  stifled  voice,  and  went 
in.  He  was  sitting  up  in  bed,  with  glittering  eyes 
and  a  hot  flush. 

"  Vm  sorry  .  .  .  to  be  .  .  .  such  a  nuisance,  .  .  . 
but  I've  .  .  .  got  it  in  .  .  .  earnest  this  time  .  .  ." 

An  hour  later  he  was  delirious,  with  a  fearful 
temperature.  While  she  was  trying  to  quiet  him, 
she  heard  the  door-bell  ring,  and  went  out  to  meet 
Karol  in  the  passage.  Coming  in  out  of  the  frost, 
powdered  with  snow  from  the  crown  of  his  fur 
cap  to  the  soles  of  his  golishes,  he  looked  rather  like 
a  grave  and  shaggy  Polar  bear. 

"  Pleurisy  again  ?"  he  asked,  taking  off  his  wraps 
and  shaking  the  ice  from  his  beard  with  a  ponder- 
ous, deliberate  movement. 

''  It  looks  too  bad  for  that.  I'm  afraid  it's  inflam- 
mation of  the  lungs." 

He  followed  her  into  the  sick-room.  When  they 
came  out  again  he  told  her  the  truth  without  hesita- 
tion, looking  her  straight  in  the  face. 

"  Yes,  both  lungs,  and  badly." 

She  was  as  white  as  her  collar,  but  quite  steady. 

"  Do  you  think  there  is  any  hope  at  all  ?" 

"  A  little.  With  most  nurses  I  should  say :  almost 
none ;  but,  you  know,  cases  like  this  depend  as  much 
on  the  nurse  as  on  the  doctor.  If  anyone  can  save 
him,  perhaps  you  can.    At  any  rate,  you  can  try." 


CHAPTER    VIII 

"  I  think/^  Karol  said,  coming  out  of  the  sick- 
room, "  we  may  count  the  immediate  danger  as 
over." 

Ohve  raised  her  head  with  a  start.  She  was  so 
worn  out  by  the  incessant  strain  of  the  last  fortnight 
that  she  could  not  sit  still  for  five  minutes  without 
falling  half  asleep.  At  the  beginning  she  had 
entreated  Karol  not  to  call  in  a  second  nurse.  "  You 
might  get  someone  who  would  be  careless  or  forget 
something;  and  one  little  mistake  now  would  kill 
him.  We  are  safer  if  we  do  everything  ourselves; 
and  I'm  strong — much  stronger  than  you  think." 

He  had  consented  to  let  her  try;  and  there  was 
no  doubt  that  she  had  managed  wonderfully  well; 
he  could  not  have  found  a  more  efficient  and  trust- 
worthy nurse.  But  the  tax  on  both  had  been  very 
heavy.  For  the  whole  fortnight  they  had  slept  only 
in  broken  snatches  here  and  there.  Even  Karol, 
an  unusually  strong  man,  was  beginning  to  feel 
giddy  when  he  stooped;  and  the  girl,  he  thought, 
was  like  a  haggard  ghost.  He  stood  looking  down 
gravely  at  the  white  face  lifted  to  his. 

"  You  have  pulled  him  through,  my  girl,  though 
154 


OLIVE    LATHAM  155 

I  scarcely  thought  you'd  do  it.  He  won't  die  now, 
unless  some  new  thing  turns  up." 

She  was  still  looking  at  him  with  parted  lips,  in 
a  helpless  way  that  made  him  wonder  whether  she 
would  begin  to  cry  the  next  minute  or  faint  instead 
from  sheer  fatigue.  But  she  did  neither.  She 
dropped  her  head  on  the  table  and  went  instantly 
to  sleep. 

At  the  end  of  the  following  week  the  patient  sat 
up  in  bed  for  a  few  minutes.  This  was  counted  as  a 
great  festival,  though  he  soon  had  to  lie  down  again, 
and  could  not  talk  except  in  a  very  weak  voice,  with 
stops  in  the  wrong  places.  After  a  while  he  gave  up 
trying,  and  lay  still,  holding  Olive's  hand  with  thin 
fingers,  and  fixing  brilliant,  sunken  eyes  upon  her 
face. 

This  was  the  happiest  day  she  had  ever  known. 
Though  still  very  tired,  she  was  no  longer  dazed 
with  fatigue,  and  had  realized  at  last  that  her  lover's 
life  was  saved.  But  this  was  only  one  of  the  day's 
joys.  That  he  was  no  longer  suffering  bodily  was 
much;  to  know  his  mind  at  peace  was  far  more; 
but  the  greatest  happiness  of  all  was  the  change  in 
herself.  While  the  danger  lasted  she  had  been  too 
busy,  and  since  it  passed  too  tired,  to  think  at  all 
of  anything  but  the  moment's  needs ;  now  it  seemed 
to  her  that  she  had  awaked,  to  find  the  old  night- 


156  OLIVE    LATHAM 

mares  gone  and  daylight  come  instead.  To  her 
temperament  nothing  was  fearful  but  the  unknown. 
She  had  courage  in  plenty  and  to  spare  for  any 
practical  emergency;  the  intolerable  thing  to  her 
was  an  unanswered  question.  Her  pathway  might 
be  difficult  and  stony,  but  if  it  was  clearly  defined 
she  could  tread  it  cheerfully;  a  wilderness  without 
a  track  was  a  horror  that  she  dared  not  face.  The 
strain  of  living  side  by  side  with  her  lover,  close  to 
him,  yet  unable  to  understand  his  inner  life,  to  see 
from  his  angle  of  view,  had  begun  to  wear  out  her 
youth.  Now,  since  she  had  come  so  near  to  losing 
him,  these  subtle  griefs  were  of  no  moment;  she 
could  wait  patiently  to  understand,  perhaps,  in  the 
future,  and  know  meanwhile  that  all  was  well  with 
her,  for  she  had  got  him  back  again. 

Two  days  later  he  had  grown  so  strong  that 
Karol  lounged  out  into  the  kitchen,  where  Olive 
was  making  a  custard,  with  a  gleam  of  laughter  in 
his  tired  eyes. 

"  There's  no  doubt  about  Volodya  being  conva- 
lescent; he  swore  at  me  just  now  when  I  wanted  to 
take  his  temperature." 

She  looked  up,  smiling. 

"  That's  always  a  joyful  sign.  My  father  says 
he  guessed,  when  I  was  quite  small,  that  I  should 
take  to  sick-nursing,  because  after  my  little  sister 


OLIVE    LATHAM  157 

had  nearly  died  of  croup,  I  tore  down  the  road  to 
meet  him,  waving  my  hat  for  joy  and  shouting: 
^Dad!    Dad!     She's  cross !' " 

She  broke  off  in  the  middle  of  a  laugh,  and  sighed. 

"  Poor  dad !"  she  said  to  herself. 

"  I  suppose  your  people  were  good  to  you  when 
you  were  a  child?"  Karol  said  with  his  eyes  on  the 
fire. 

She  looked  up  in  amazement. 

"  Good  to  me  ?  Dad  and  mother  ?  Why,  they'd 
cut  themselves  into  little  pieces  for  me." 

She  paused  a  moment,  looking  at  him,  then  asked 
softly :  "  Didn't  .  .  .  weren't  your  parents  kind  to 
you?" 

"  They  did  the  only  thing  they  could  for  me ;  they 
left  me  things  to  remember.  My  father  was  shot 
when  I  was  a  tiny  mite,  and  my  mother  died  in 
prison.  I  can  just  remember  the  news  of  her  death 
coming,  and  my  old  grandfather  making  me  kneel 
down  before  the  crucifix  and  promise.  ..." 

But  instead  of  telling  her  what  it  was  he  had 
promised,  he  remarked  lazily :  "  It  must  be  rather 
jolly  to  have  parents,  if  they're  a  decent  sort,"  and 
went  back  into  the  sick-room. 

When  she  came  in  with  the  custard,  Vladimir's 
little  pet  Kostya,  the  porter's  child,  was  perched  on 
the  edge  of  the  bed,  chattering  and  gurgling  with 


158  OLIVE    LATHAM 

delight.  For  three  weeks  he  had  been  fretting  to  see 
his  friend,  whom,  for  all  his  mother's  scolding,  he 
persisted  in  calling  " Volodya,"  instead  of  "Vladimir 
Ivanych." 

*'  Volodya's  going  to  give  me  a  horse  to-morrow, 
for  carnival;  and  you're  to  buy  it,  doctor,  he  said 
so — didn't  you,  Volodya  ?  A  black  horse  with  white 
feet  .  .  ." 

"  All  right,  I'll  remember ;  but  you  must  run 
away  now;  Volodya's  tired." 

"  Good-bye,  Kostya,"  Vladimir  called,  as  Olive 
carried  the  child  out ;  and  the  little  voice  piped  back : 

"  Good-bye,  Volodya." 

''  I've  a  lot  of  things  to  do,"  Karol  said  when 
she  came  back.  "  I  shall  sleep  at  my  own  lodgings, 
and  come  round  in  the  morning.  Don't  sit  up. 
Volodya's  all  right  now,  so  long  as  he  doesn't  catch 
cold.  Keep  the  room  warm,  though;  the  weather 
report  predicts  another  snow-storm  for  to-night. 
Oh,  and  I  want  to  make  an  alteration  in  the  diet- 
sheet.     At  midnight  and  at  two  .  .  ." 

"  Let  the  girl  alone,  Karol,"  said  Vladimir  irrita- 
bly. "  You  ought  to  have  been  an  old  woman, 
fussing  about  that  way." 

The  word  "  fussing,"  applied  to  Karol,  set  Olive 
laughing  again.  She  was  happy  enough  to  see  cause 
for  laughter  everywhere  to-day. 


OLIVE    LATHAM  159 

"  It's  all  very  well  to  laugh,"  Vladimir  said ; 
*'  but  you're  gone  all  to  skin  and  bone.  Put  your 
diet-sheet  and  all  your  rubbish  on  the  table  here, 
and  go  to  sleep  properly,  like  a  reasonable  woman. 
If  I  want  anything  in  the  night  I'll  get  it  myself." 

''  And  catch  another  chill,  and  have  the  whole  fort- 
night's performance  all  over  again  ?  No,  thank  you, 
dear;  once  is  enough." 

''  Besides,  you  wouldn't  have  it  all  over  again," 
said  Karol.  ''If  you  were  to  catch  a  chill  just  now, 
there'd  be  an  end  of  you  altogether ;  so  lie  still  and 
keep  warm.    Good-bye  till  to-morrow." 

Evening  came  with  a  rapidly  falling  thermometer 
and  snow-clouds  rolling  in  from  the  north.  Olive 
settled  her  patient  for  the  night  early,  then  lay  down 
on  the  sitting-room  couch,  and  slept  soundly  till 
nearly  midnight.  She  had  the  trained  nurse's  gift 
of  waking  at  any  moment  that  she  chose.  The 
first  thing  she  saw  on  opening  her  eyes  was  a  mass 
of  white  blurs  racing  horizontally  past  the  window ; 
the  snow-storm  had  begun.  Coming  into  the  sick- 
room punctually  as  the  clock  struck  twelve,  she  found 
Vladimir  lying  awake,  wide-eyed,  with  a  tragically 
set  mouth.  When,  having  carried  out  her  instruc- 
tions, she  turned  to  go,  he  caught  her  hand  and 
clasped  it  tightly. 

"  Olive  .  .  ." 


160  OLIVE    LATHAM 

She  sat  down  beside  him. 

''Yes,  dearest?" 

'^  You  remember  what  you  said  that  day  before    i 
I  went  out  ?" 

"  Yes,  I  remember." 

"  You  were  quite  right.  It's  nothing  but  selfish- 
ness in  me  to  keep  you  here;  it  was  nothing  else 
from  the  beginning.  I  had  no  right  ever  to  drag  you 
into  such  a  life  as  mine." 

"  But  you  didn't  drag  me ;   I  came." 

"  Well,  well,  put  it  that  way  if  you  like.  Any- 
how, you're  here,  wasting  your  youth  over  a  worn- 
out  wreck  that's  only  fit  to  die  like  a  mangy  rat  in  a 
hole.  .  .  ." 

"  My  dear,  you  would  very  much  oblige  me  by 
remembering  that  it's  not  manners  to  throw  bad 
names,  in  my  presence,  at  the  man  I  happen  to  be 
engaged  to.  And  I  should  be  still  more  grateful  to 
you  if  you  wouldn't  try  to  talk  at  night  when  you're 
feverish." 

He  flung  off  her  hand  with  a  passionate  gesture. 

"  Ah,  you  fool  me  as  if  I  were  a  child !  Do  you 
think  I  can't  see  what  your  love  is — just  a  sort  of 
glorified  pity?  You  come  along  like  an  angel  of 
compassion,  and  hold  my  hands  to  make  me  forget 
what  they  could  have  .  .  ." 

He  broke  off,  biting  his  lip ;   and  the  girl  covered 


OLIVE    LATHAM  161 

her  eyes,  remembering  how  in  the  black  days  of 
dehrium  his  fingers  had  moved  incessantly  upon  the 
coverlet,  modelling  in  imaginary  clay. 

"  Volodya,"  she  said,  turning  to  him  gravely;  ''  I 
didn't  want  to  talk  about  it  till  you  are  stronger; 
but  since  you  persist,  I  will  tell  you  now.  I  see 
all  this  in  a  different  light  since  you  were  ill;  there 
are  still  many  things  that  I  don't  understand,  but 
I'm  quite  happy  and  content  to  go  on  without  under- 
standing. I  don't  particularly  mind  whether  we  ever 
marry  or  not;  that  seems  to  me  a  very  little  point 
beside  the  other,  the  real  thing.  Don't  you  see? 
I've  carried  you  back  in  my  arms  from  the  very 
edge;  you're  just  as  much  mine  as  if  you  were  my 
own  child.  Nothing  matters,  so  long  as  I  can  hear 
you  breathing  and  know  you  are  safe.  There,  now 
go  to  sleep.    Ah,  my  dear,  is  the  pain  worse  again  ?" 

He  burst  out  laughing  harshly. 

"  I  didn't  know  you  were  so  clever  at  tacking 
pretty  names  to  ugly  facts.  It  all  comes  to  the  same 
thing:  you  give,  and  give,  and  I  on  my  side  have 
nothing  to  give.  Even  Karol  can  see  that,  though 
he  won't  acknowledge  it.  He  told  me  to-day  you 
had  a  '  maternal  instinct,'  and  I  ought  to  let  you 
indulge  it.  .  .  .  But  Karol  can  .  .  .  always  beat 
me  at  argument;  he  .  .  .  gets  his  .  .  .  wind  so 
cheap.  ..." 

II 


162  OLIVE    LATHAM 

He  turned  his  head  away  with  a  quick,  impatient 
sigh;  and  she,  leaning  back  in  her  chair,  looked 
fixedly  out  of  the  window.  Past  its  square  of  dull 
and  frosty  blackness  hurried  endless  troops  of  snow- 
flakes,  driven  by  a  merciless  wind.  Her  heart  sank 
within  her  at  the  sound  of  Vladimir's  uneven, 
laboured  breathing.  She  turned  to  look  at  him ;  he 
lay  with  closed  eyes,  and  the  sharp  contraction  of 
his  forehead  at  every  rise  and  fall  of  the  lungs 
sickened  her  as  though  the  stab  were  in  her  own 
chest. 

There  was  a  knock  at  the  door. 

''  A  telegram !"  a  man's  voice  called.  "  It's 
marked  '  Urgent.'  " 

"  Something  wrong  with  dad,"  flashed  across  the 
girl's  mind.    She  rose  hastily. 

"  At  once  .  .  ." 

Vladimir's  hand  on  her  wrist  stopped  the  beating 
of  her  heart. 

"  It's  not  a  telegram,"  he  said. 
***** 

When  the  gray  mist  lifted  she  turned  and  looked 
at  him.  He  was  leaning  forward  with  arms  out- 
stretched to  embrace  her,  laughing,  radiant. 

"  Sweetheart,  haven't  we  quarrelled  enough  for 
a  Hfe  that  is  so  short?  Kiss  me,  and  open;  it  is 
death  that  knocks  at  the  door." 


OLIVE    LATHAM  163 

"  A  telegram !"  the  voice  repeated ;  but  they 
scarcely  heard  it.  She  stooped  over  him,  and  they 
kissed  each  other  on  the  lips.  Then  she  unlocked 
the  door.  As  the  blue-clad  figures  burst  in  with  a 
rush,  something  broke  and  vanished;  something 
golden,  that  shivered  into  atoms  and  fell  as  dust 
about  her  feet. 

She  stood  beside  the  bed,  quite  still,  seeing  with- 
out interest  the  shamed  faces  of  the  men,  hearing 
without  attention  the  officer's  courteous  phrases. 
"  Seriously  ill  .  .  .  discharge  of  a  painful 
duty  .  .  ."  It  all  went  past  her,  like  a  thin  breeze 
far  ojff. 

Curiously  monotonous  and  commonplace  it  was, 
too;  a  dull  thing  of  every  day,  that  she  had  known 
since  the  world  began;  had  lived  through,  surely, 
oh,  how  many  thousand  times  before  ? 

It  was  Vladimir  who  was  talking  now.  His  voice 
was  not  contemptuous;  it  was  merely  indifferent. 
"  How  bored  he  is !"  she  thought ;  and  wondered 
that  he  cared  even  to  finish  the  sentence. 

"  As  you  wish,  gentlemen ;  it  is  your  trade,  of 
course.    Shall  I  dress?" 

The  officer's  eyes  dropped.  He  looked  at  the 
window,  at  the  hunted  snowflakes,  then  at  Olive's 
face;    and  turned  to  the  assistant  procurator,  who 


164  OLIVE    LATHAM 

stood  beside  him,  a  black,  buttoned-up  figure,  thin- 
lipped,  precise,  with  shifty  eyes. 

*'  It's  awkward,"  he  said,  under  his  breath.  ''  A 
night  like  this  ..." 

"  Yes,"  the  other  answered  in  a  gentle,  purring 
voice.    "  There  are  twenty-four  degrees  of  frost." 

He  turned,  smiling,  to  Vladimir.  ''  This  room 
is  very  warm;  perhaps  the  air  will  do  you  good. 
Lung  trouble,  I  understand?  A  very  distressing 
complaint;  but  the  doctors  are  all  for  the  open-air 
cure  nowadays." 

"  We  scarcely  need  to  discuss  that,"  Vladimir 
answered,  in  the  sanric  tone ;  "  seeing  that  you  have 
already  signed  the  warrant." 

OHve  spoke  for  the  first  time,  in  the  manner  of 
one  asking  merely  for  information.  "  Is  it  a  death- 
warrant  ?"     "* 

The  assistant  procurator  fixed  her  suddenly  with 
his  blue  eyes.  Two  little  points  of  hidden  laughter 
gleamed  behind  the  half-closed  lids,  and  vanished. 

"  And  who  may  you  be?"  he  said. 

''  Olive !"  the  sick  man  cried  out  in  a  voice  so 
imperious,  so  beseeching,  that  she  ran  to  him  ill 
terror.    He  caught  her  wrist  with  a  hot  hand. 

"  Dearest,  it's  useless ;  it's  utterly  useless  to 
resist !  You  don't  understand  ...  it  kills  me  to  see 
you   with  that  snake,   when   I   can't  get  up   and 


OLIVE    LATHAM  165 

strangle  him.  He'll  insult  you  .  .  .  he'll  laugh  at 
you.     It's  Madeyski." 

She  only  stared  at  him.  She  had  heard  Karol 
speak  of  a  Pole  named  Madeyski  who  had  made  a 
successful  career  for  himself  by  taking  service  with 
the  I^ssians ;  but  she  was  still  too  ignorant  of  the 
new  world  into  which  she  had  entered  to  understand 
why  a  Polish  renegade  should  be  wor^  to  deal  with 
than  any  other  Russian  official. 

He  was  standing  close  behind  her  now,  with  lifted 
eyebrows  and  an  interrogative  smile.  "  You  were 
saying  ...    ?'* 

Vladimir's  face  set  like  a  mask.  "  I  was  saying 
that  my  keys  are  hanging  on  a  nail  beside  the  stove. 
This  lady  is  Miss  Latham,  a  British  subject  and  a 
certificated  sick-nurse.  She  is  so  kind  as  to  sit  up 
by  me  at  ray  doctor's  request.  But  we  are  detaining 
you,  gentlemen." 

His  voice  was  growing  faint  and  husky.  Olive 
sat  down  beside  the  bed,  saying  with  authority: 

"  The  patient  must  not  talk  any  more  just  now." 
Madeyski  glanced  at  her  sharply,  then  bowed, 
smiling,  and  turned  away. 

The  searching  of  the  rooms  occupied  two  hours; 
and  all  the  time  Olive  sat  holding  her  lover's  hand. 
When  he  coughed  she  lifted  him  in  her  arms,  sup- 
porting his  head  against  her  breast ;   otherwise  they 


166  OLIVE    LATHAM 

were  still.  The  presence  of  strangers  in  no  way 
disturbed  them,  nor  had  they  any  desire  for  speech. 
Footsteps  and  voices  and  moving  shapes  of  men 
were  close  to  them,  the  snow  beat  against  the 
window,  the  clock  struck  and  struck  again;  they 
remained  silent,  with  locked  hands. 

A  few  minutes  before  two,  she  rose,  lit  a  spirit- 
lamp,  and  began  to  warm  a  measured  quantity  of 
beef-tea.  She  was  quite  methodical,  as  always. 
Madeyski  came  up  to  her. 

"  What  have  you  there?'' 

She  pointed  to  the  diet-sheet.  When  she  poured 
out  the  liquid  he  took  the  cup  from  her  hand,  dipped 
the  spoon,  smelt  it  and  touched  it  to  his  lips,  then 
handed  her  back  the  cup. 

"  Yes,  he  may  have  that." 

She  removed  the  spoon,  carried  the  tray  to  the 
bedside,  and  sat  down  again  in  silence.  A  vague 
trouble  flickered  in  her  eyes.  Why  had  she  not 
thought  of  such  a  simple  thing?  A  little  prussic 
acid  ...  it  would  have  been  so  easy  to  give  unob- 
served ;  and  it  would  have  saved  him  from  the  cold. 
But  she  had  no  poison  in  the  house;  one  thinks  of 
these  things  when  it  is  too  late. 

Before  half-past  two  the  search  was  finished; 
nothing,  of  course,  had  been  found.  The  official 
report  of  the  arrest,  with  the  names  and  status  of 


OLIVE    LATHAM  167 

all  persons  present,  was  then  drawn  up  and  read 
aloud;  and  the  two  detectives  in  plain  clothes  who 
attended  as  witnesses  came  forward  and  signed. 
The  officer  glanced  at  Madeyski;  then,  with  an 
unwilling  face,  approached  the  bed. 

"  The  sledge  is  at  the  door.  The  lady  may  go 
into  the  other  room,  and  my  men  will  help  you 
dress." 

Nothing  stirred  in  Olive's  face.  Vladimir  touched 
her  hand  with  a  lingering  caress  of  light  finger- 
tips.   "  Go,  dear  love;  it  is  the  end." 

She  flashed  out  in  sudden  anger. 

"  Lie  still !  You  are  my  patient ;  you  shall  move 
when  I  give  leave." 

She  rose  deliberately,  set  her  back  against  the 
door,  and  faced  the  officials ;  saying  in  her  negative, 
professional  manner,  with  a  slightly  lowered  voice: 

"  The  doctor  in  charge  of  the  case  must  be  sent 
for.  In  his  absence  I  am  responsible  for  the  patient's 
life,  and  I  cannot  let  you  pass  till  he  comes." 

Madeyski  approached  her  softly,  peering  at  her 
with  his  narrow  gaze.  He  had  not  met  before  a 
woman  of  quite  this  kind,  and  she  interested  him. 
He  came  very  close,  then  drew  back  a  little,  seeing 
danger  in  her  eyes.  A  hush  had  fallen  upon  the 
onlookers;    they  waited,  holding  their  breath. 

No  knife,  no  vitriol,  nothing  but  empty  hands.  .  .  . 


168  OLIVE    LATHAM 

There  was  a  paraffin  lamp  on  the  table,  but  that  was 
out  of  reach,  and  she  herself  had  screwed  the  burner 
tight.  .  .  .    No,  empty  hands.  .  .  . 

Her  eyes  crept  downwards  to  the  apple  of  his 
throat,  just  visible  above  the  tight,  stiff  collar.  .  .  . 

As  the  doubt  grew  in  her  face,  Madeyski's  lips 
relaxed  into  a  smile.    He  turned  to  the  officer. 

"  Pardon  me,  the  examination  is  incomplete ;  we 
had  forgotten  to  have  the  woman's  person 
searched." 

Vladimir's  sharp,  passionate  outcry :  "  She  is  a 
British  subject;  it's  illegal!"  struck  against  her  ears 
and  had  no  meaning.  Even  when  she  saw  Madeyski 
turn  away,  laughing  softly  to  himself,  she  only 
whispered  vacantly :  "  The  woman's  person.  .  .  ." 

Something  had  rushed  towards  her,  menacing, 
black,  formless.  .  .  .  No,  that  was  nothing;  she 
was  alive  and  awake,  and  there  were  men's  hands 
upon  her.  One,  that  held  her  wrist,  had  a  mark, 
like  an  old  scar,  below  the  knuckle  of  a  hairy 
finger.  .  .  . 

She  saw  a  spectre  start  up  with  a  loud  and  dread- 
ful cry,  a  white  sheet,  like  a  shroud,  flung  off  and 
trailing;  then  the  men  were  somehow  swept  aside, 
and  she  knelt  alone  over  the  senseless  body  on  the 
floor. 

"  Oh,  he  is  dead !"  she  cried. 


OLIVE    LATHAM  169 

He  had  been  knocked  down  in  the  struggle. 

She  was,  of  course,  not  searched ;  the  suggestion 
had  been  a  joke,  and  was  now  tacitly  dropped. 

Vladimir  recovered  consciousness  at  last,  and 
looked  round,  sighing  heavily.  Olive  was  kneeling 
beside  him,  her  arm  about  his  neck.  Seeing  that  he 
was  trying  to  speak  to  her,  she  bent  down  and  put 
her  ear  close  to  his  lips. 

"  Let  ...  go  ...  so  soon  .  .  .  over  .  .  ." 

She  rose  and  moved  away  in  silence.  The  one 
thing  left  that  she  could  do  for  him  was,  it  seemed, 
to  let  him  die  as  quickly  as  might  be. 

Dressing  was  slow  work;  every  few  minutes  he 
had  to  stop  and  rest,  and  twice  he  fainted  again. 
When  it  was  done  the  men  half  led,  half  carried 
him  downstairs,  and  out  into  a  black  and  whirling 
hell,  that  glittered  in  the  lamplight,  full  of  needle- 
points. The  closed  sledge  was  waiting  by  the  door, 
a  white  mass  looming  indistinctly,  with  ghostly 
horses  sheeted  all  in  frost,  their  breathing  gray 
around  them  like  a  cloud. 

At  the  first  onslaught  of  the  wind  Vladimir  stag- 
gered, caught  at  the  metal  bar  of  the  sledge  with 
his  bare  hand  for  support,  and  wrenched  the  hand 
away,  the  skin  burnt  off  with  frost.  One  of  the 
gendarmes,  forgetting  his  uniform  and  the  presence 
of  his  superiors,  flung  an  arm  round  him. 


170  OLIVE    LATHAM 

"  Oh,  why  didn't  I  help  you !" 

There  were  tears  in  his  eyes.  Vladimir  looked  at 
him  in  wonder. 

''  Why,  man,"  he  said;   "  that  doesn't  hurt." 

Seated  in  the  sledge  between  two  gendarmes,  he 
turned  his  head  and  looked  out.  The  officer  was 
standing  near,  giving  directions  to  his  men,  who 
listened  sullenly,  with  lowered  eyes.  On  the  door- 
step stood  the  porter's  wife,  crossing  herself  and 
praying  aloud.  Kostya,  snatched  up  from  his  bed 
and  hastily  wrapped  in  a  fur  cloak,  clung  to  her 
skirt,  sobbing  and  terrified.  Olive  was  not  beside 
them.  She  stood  close  to  the  sledge,  bare-headed 
under  the  storm;  the  frozen  breath  white  on  her 
lashes,  white  snowflakes  eddying  round  her.  Her 
face  was  empty  as  a  slate  from  which  the  writing  is 
rubbed  out. 

"  Anna  Ivanovna,"  Vladimir  called  to  the  por- 
ter's wife;  "take  Kostya  in,  he  will  catch 
cold." 

At  the  sound  of  his  name  the  child  broke  away 
from  his  mother's  hand  and,  scrambling  into  the 
sledge,  sobbed  on  Vladimir's  neck. 

"  Volodya !  Volodya !  Why  are  they  taking  you 
away?" 

"  Kostya !"  the  mother  called.  "  Come  back — 
naughty !    Come  back !" 


OLIVE    LATHAM  171 

*' But  why?"  the  Httle  wailing  voice  persisted. 
"  Why  must  you  go  with  them  ?    It's  so  cold !" 

Madeyski  stepped  forward.  "  Put  the  child 
down,"  he  said  to  the  men. 

Kostya  looked  round,  saw  the  bland  face  close  to 
his,  the  narrow  eyes,  the  smiling  mouth ;  and  flung 
himself  bodily  upon  Vladimir,  shrieking,  mad  with 
fear. 

"It's  the  black  man !  Volodya,  he'll  put  you  in 
a  hole  under  the  ice.  .  .  ." 

Vladimir's  set  lips  quivered  suddenly;  he  put 
a  hand  up,  and  covered  his  face. 

"  Get  away  there,  you  little  devil !"  the  officer 
cried  in  desperation,  and  added  softly  to  Madeyski : 
"  Look  here,  we  shall  have  the  men  out  of  hand 
in  a  minute !" 

Vladimir  stooped  and  kissed  the  tumbled  head. 

"  Hush,  midget,  hush !  I  shan't  be  cold  long. 
And  then,  you  know,  it's  carnival  to-morrow,  and 
the  broken  things  have  to  be  swept  away,  haven't 
they?  There,  there,  go  back  to  bed;  you'll  under- 
stand when  you  get  bigger." 

Kostya  had  left  off  struggling  and  screaming;  he 
listened  with  wide  eyes,  overawed.  Then  he  sub- 
mitted, holding  out  fat  arms  to  be  lifted  off  the 
sledge.  As  his  mother  carried  him  away,  his  solemn 
baby  face,  the  round  cheeks  glistening  with  icicles 


172  OLIVE    LATHAM 

that  had  been  tears,  looked  back  over  her  shoulder 
at  this  unknown,  silent,  midnight  world,  where 
grown-up  people  cry. 

In  Olive's  face  there  was  no  change.  Only  some 
shadowy  wonder  at  these  outsiders  and  their  facile 
grief  had  flitted  over  it  and  faded  out  again.  Vladi- 
mir stretched  a  hand  to  her. 

"  Good-bye." 

She  answered  him,  as  one  who  talks  in  sleep: 

"  You  may  be  satisfied ;  I  shall  remember." 

"What  is  it?"  Madeyski  asked,  thrusting  an 
affable  face  between  them. 

She  turned  blank  eyes  towards  the  sound.  Her 
understanding  had  ears  for  only  Vladimir's  voice; 
and  it  was  he  who  answered,  as  the  runners  grated 
on  the  snow : 

"  Nothing ;  only  that  carnival  begins  to-morrow, 
and  '  even  in  our  street  there'll  be  a  holiday.'  " 

"  All  in  good  time,"  said  Madeyski,  smiling  and 
gracious.  "The  lady  may  rest  assured;  you,  at 
least,  shall  have  a  holiday." 

There  was  no  answer.  Vladimir's  cough  had 
begun  again,  and  its  tearing  sound  struck  back  on 
Olive's  ears  above  the  ringing  of  the  horses'  hoofs. 

*  *  Hs  *  * 

About  nine  in  the  morning  Karol  came  up  the 
street,  with  a  cutting  wind  in  his  teeth.     A  friend 


OLIVE    LATHAM  173 

who  had  connections  in  the  secret  poHce  department 
had  called  on  him  late  at  night  to  warn  him  that 
Vladimir's  case  was  being  discussed  there,  and  that 
a  search,  or  some  other  unpleasantness,  might  be 
expected  in  a  few  days.  "  Nothing  will  happen 
to-night,"  he  had  said,  so  Karol  had  judged  it  best 
to  put  off  coming  till  the  morning.  Unless  someone 
among  Vladimir's  friends  had  been  careless,  he 
thought,  there  was  little  fear  of  anything  more  than 
a  domiciliary  search,  a  mere  annoyance  in  the  case 
of  a  person  so  scrupulous  about  destroying  every 
scrap  of  paper.  But  the  sooner  the  warning  was 
given  the  better. 

As  Karol  entered  from  the  street,  the  porter, 
scraping  the  slippery  pavement,  looked  up  and  asked 
him  sharply:  "  Where  are  you  going?" 

It  was  the  first  time  the  question  had  been  put,  and 
Karol  glanced  round  at  him  with  keen  eyes. 

In  the  courtyard  the  tracks  of  the  sledge  had  been 
effaced  by  fresh  snow,  but  the  doorstep  showed  the 
marks  of  many  feet.  He  passed  a  ground-floor 
window  opening  on  to  the  court,  and  saw  the  blind 
raised  a  little  and  a  scared  face  peering  out  at  him. 
Then  it  vanished.  At  the  foot  of  the  stairs  lay  a 
crumpled  white  thing.  It  was  a  man's  pocket-hand- 
kerchief, and  the  stain  upon  the  linen  told  him  whose 
it  was  before  he  stooped  to  pick  it  up ;  but  he  spread 


174  OLIVE    LATHAM 

it  out  slowly  in  his  hands  and  read  the  embroidered 
initials. 

Under  the  first  shock  of  the  blow,  his  mind  went 
back  mechanically  to  the  habits  of  its  early  Catho- 
lic training.  He  put  up  a  hand  and  crossed  himself, 
whispering,  after  the  fashion  of  his  people : 

"Jesus,  Mary!" 

Then  he  stepped  quickly  into  the  shadow  of  the 
doorway,  and,  as  was  his  wont  in  emergencies, 
paused  for  a  moment  to  run  over  the  situation  in  his 
mind,  taking  in  all  its  aspects  with  the  swift  clear- 
ness of  long  habit. 

It  would  be  worse  than  useless  for  him  to  go 
upstairs  now.  The  police  would  be  in  possession 
of  the  rooms;  and  he,  as  an  old  suspect,  would 
certainly  be  arrested  on  entering.  Having  no  con- 
nection with  the  case,  he  would  very  likely  be 
released  again  in  a  few  weeks,  but  his  one  chance 
of  helping  Olive  would  be  gone  by  then.  He  must 
find  out  first  of  all  where  she  was. 

Trying  to  leave  the  courtyard,  he  saw  the  blind 
of  the  same  window  raised  again.  This  time  a  hand 
beckoned  to  him,  and  a  moment  later  the  porter's 
wife,  red  with  crying,  opened  a  side-door. 

"  Doctor,  come  in  here  a  minute,  please.  You 
know  what  has  happened?" 

"I  see." 


OLIVE    LATHAM  175 

"  They're  upstairs.  They  let  me  take  the  young 
lady  into  my  room.  I  don't  know  what  to  do  with 
her.    I  can't  get  her  to  move;  she's  like  an  image." 

He  found  Olive  in  the  little,  close,  dark  room; 
a  stone  figure  with  open  eyes.  He  spoke  to  her  in 
English,  calling  her  name  softly,  but  there  was  no 
answer.  Her  eyelids  fluttered  a  little,  then  the  face 
stiffened  and  was  stone  once  more. 

"  Wake  up !"  he  said,  and  shook  her  by  the  arm. 
"  Wake  up !  you  have  work  to  do." 


CHAPTER    IX 

"  I'll  wait  for  you  here,"  Karol  said,  pausing 
on  the  bridge  over  the  frozen  canal.  "  It's  that  door 
where  the  sentinel  is  standing." 

Olive  looked  up  at  him.  It  was  all  only  a  few 
hours  ago,  and  her  eyes  were  still  helpless  and 
vague. 

"  Can't  you  come  in  with  me  ?    Must  I  go  alone  ?" 

She  began  to  tremble,  and  Karol's  hand  clenched 
itself  in  the  pocket  of  his  fur  coat.  Few  things  in 
life  had  seemed  to  him  harder  than  this  sending  her 
in  there  alone.  He  knew  so  well  what  it  would 
be  like. 

"  It's  better  not,"  he  said  gently.  "  I  should  only 
take  away  what  little  chance  you  have ;  you  see,  they 
know  me." 

"  But  have  I  any  chance?" 

'•  Your  being  a  foreigner  is  in  your  favour.  I 
don't  think  they'll  let  you  see  him,  but  they  may 
pass  a  letter  through.  Ask  to  see  the  Director  him- 
self, and  don't  let  anyone  else  talk  to  you,  if  you  can 
help  it.    And  remember  what  I  told  you." 

She  answered  like  a  child  repeating  a  lesson : 

"  I  remember.     If  anyone  insults  me,  to  take  no 

notice." 
176 


OLIVE    LATHAM  177 

She  left  him  standing  on  the  bridge,  and  walked 
along  the  quay  to  the  house  with  the  open  door  and 
the  inscription :  ''  Central  Department  of  State 
Police." 

"  Can  I  see  His  Excellency  the  Director?" 

After  stating  her  name  and  business,  she  was 
taken  into  a  long  wide  corridor  with  benches  against 
the  wall. 

"  Wait  there ;  and  you  will  be  called  in  to  the 
audience-room  when  your  turn  comes." 

She  sat  waiting  for  more  than  an  hour.  Several 
rooms  opened  directly  from  the  corridor ;  there  were 
also  passages  leading  to  other  parts  of  the  building ; 
and  a  continual  stream  of  figures  in  uniform  passed 
in  and  out,  hurrying,  lounging,  gossiping,  rustling 
papers  and  slamming  doors.  Petitioners  waiting 
their  turn  sat  in  a  long  row  on  the  benches,  some 
whispering  together,  a  few  talking  excitedly,  others 
quite  silent.  Beside  Olive  sat  a  poverty-stricken 
woman  with  a  child  leaning  against  her  knees. 
From  time  to  time  a  few  tears  trickled  down  her 
cheeks,  and  were  brushed  away  mechanically  by  the 
rusty  black  sleeve  of  her  jacket.  Every  few  minutes 
the  door  of  the  audience-room  at  the  further  end 
would  open,  one  petitioner  would  come  out,  and 
another  be  called  in. 

Most  of  them  followed  their  guide  with  a  flurried 

12 


178  OLIVE    LATHAM 

manner  and  an  expression  timid,  furtive  or  anxious ; 
a  few  wore  a  stolid  look  of  indifference. 

The  door  nearest  to  Olive  opened  a  little,  and  a 
voice  called  in  French : 

''  Alexis,  come  out  and  have  a  smoke ;  I'm  bored 
to  death." 

Two  young  officers  of  gendarmerie  came  out  into 
the  corridor.  The  one  addressed  as  Alexis  was  a 
vacuous  creature  whose  heavy  features  contrasted 
oddly  with  the  daintiness  of  his  blue  and  silver  uni- 
form. The  other  belonged  to  the  type  that  gains 
quick  promotion  by  the  favour  of  ladies  at  Court. 
He  was  slender  and  graceful ;  a  southern  Pole,  with 
a  handsome  face  that  was  beginning  to  show  faint, 
ugly  signs  round  the  mouth  and  eyes,  and  silky  dark 
curls,  already  growing  thin.  Both  affected  an 
elaborate  elegance;  a  scent  of  heliotrope  trailed 
behind  them,  and  as  they  strolled  along  the  corridor, 
chatting  lazily,  their  figures  showed  the  lines  of 
stays. 

"Oh,  you  and  your  Masha!"  the  handsome  one 
said,  lighting  his  cigarette  and  tossing  the  match  at 
a  petitioner's  feet.  "  Every  fat  market-wife  is  a 
beauty  to  you." 

They  passed  on,  smoking.  A  little  wizened  old 
man,  gorgeous  with  silver  galloon,  came  out  from 
the  room  and  hobbled  down  the  corridor.    Presently 


OLIVE    LATHAM  179 

the  two  subalterns  sauntered  back.  The  handsome 
one  stopped  short  in  front  of  OHve. 

"  That's  not  a  bad-looking  girl,  if  she  knew  how 
to  dress;  your  Moscow  prize  pigs  don't  hold  their 
heads  that  way.  General,  come  and  look  at  this  girl's 
hair." 

The  little  old  man  limped  up  to  them,  and  peered 
under  the  brim  of  Olive's  fur  hat,  holding  his  cigar 
delicately  in  a  jewelled,  withered  hand.  The  smoke 
rose  in  a  blue  line,  and  broke  against  her  cheek. 
She  sat  still,  her  clenched  hands  tightening  slowly  in 
her  lap. 

"  I  should  have  liked  a  touch  more  red  in  it,"  he 
said ;  "  and  brown  eyes.  These  gray-eyed  women 
are  as  cold  as  fishes ;  they  haven't  an  ounce  of  tem- 
perament." 

The  conversation  drifted  into  detail,  with  illustra- 
tive anecdotes.  Fortunately,  Olive  was  not  suf- 
ficiently familiar  with  the  mixed  Russian  and  French 
jargon  that  they  spoke  to  understand  quite  every- 
thing.    Presently  they  moved  on  and  left  her  alone. 

"  They're  calling  you,"  said  the  woman  in  the 
black  jacket,  turning  dull  eyes  towards  her  lan- 
guidly.    "  You'll  lose  your  turn." 

It  was  only  when  she  stood  up  that  she  found 
herself  all  stiff  and  cold.  She  unclenched  her  hands, 
and  rubbed  the  damp  from  them  with  her  handker- 


180  OLIVE    LATHAM 

chief.  Somehow  she  had  not  realized  that  it  had 
hurt  so  much  as  that. 

She  followed  her  guide  into  the  audience-room. 

'''Olive  Latham,  a  British  subject.  Petition: 
for  information  concerning  Vladimir  Ivanovych 
Damarov,  prisoner  of  State.  .  .  .'  " 

His  Excellency  lifted  a  hand,  and  the  droning 
voice  stopped. 

"  What  is  your  connection  with  the  prisoner?" 

"  I  am  betrothed  to  him,  your  Excellency." 

"  And  what  is  it  you  want  ?" 

"  To  know  where  he  is ;  and  to  see  him  if 
possible." 

"  Prisoners  are  not  allowed  to  see  visitors  during 
the  first  period  of  detention.    In  four  weeks  .  .  ." 

"  He  is  dying,  your  Excellency." 

The  director  turned  to  his  secretary.  "  Is  there 
any  special  report  on  this  case?" 

The  secretary  handed  him  a  paper.  He  glanced 
over  it,  and  said  without  looking  up : 

"  Come  again  to-morrow." 

She  moved  a  step  nearer. 

"  Your  Excellency,  he  may  be  dead  by  then.  If 
I  can't  see  him,  may  I  write?  If  he  could  have  just 
one  line.  ..." 

"  Come  again  to-morrow,"  the  director  repeated ; 
and  added  over  his  shoulder :  "  The  next  petition." 


OLIVE    LATHAM  181 

Everything  appeared  to  be  suddenly  blurred  with 
red. 

"  May  I  send  a  message  ?  Tell  me  where  he  is, 
at  least.  .  .  .  Your  Excellency  .  .  .  but  you  don't 
understand — he's  dying." 

Someone  touched  her  on  the  shoulder.  "  His 
Excellency  is  engaged." 

She  was  in  the  corridor  again,  and  the  door  of  the 
audience-room  had  shut  behind  her. 

She  went  out  into  the  street.  The  sentinel  looked 
after  her  with  vague  curiosity;  he  had  seen  other 
faces  wear  that  look.  As  she  walked  along  the  quay 
with  her  even  tread,  the  holiday  crowd  on  the  pave- 
ment stepped  aside  to  let  her  pass.  On  the  bridge 
Karol  came  forward  and  drew  her  arm  through  his. 
She  neither  spoke  nor  looked  up. 

For  some  time  they  walked  in  silence;  then  she 
turned  her  head  and  looked  at  him.  Assuredly  she 
was  past  the  help  of  any  man's  sympathy ;  but  there 
was  more  than  sympathy  in  Karol's  steady  eyes,  and 
the  tense  lines  about  her  mouth  relaxed  a  little.  She 
looked  round  her  at  the  quay,  the  canal,  the  passers- 
by;  then  back  into  Karol's  face. 

"  I  have  failed." 

"  I  know,"  he  answered  tenderly.  "  One  gen- 
erally fails." 

They  were  silent  again. 


182  OLIVE    LATHAM 

"After  all,"  she  said  at  last;  "it  doesn't  make 
much  difference." 

The  life  faded  out  of  her  face,  leaving  a  rigid 
mask. 

"  It  can't  be  more  than  two  or  three  days  now, 
can  it?" 

"  I  think  not." 

They  walked  on,  passing  street  after  street.  Car- 
nival surged  round  them,  with  rattling  and  shout- 
ing, with  capering  and  quarrelling,  with  red  and 
yellow  finery,  with  kissing  and  drink. 

"  There  is  just  this  about  it,"  he  said,  when  they 
turned  into  a  quieter  street ;  "  that  you  get  the  worst 
at  the  beginning.  Our  people  have  a  saying  that 
when  once  you're  accustomed  to  these  things,  you 
can  manage  to  stand  them ;  the  whole  trick  is  to  get 
accustomed." 

She  found  herself  laughing,  and  the  sound  of  her 
own  voice  scared  her,  it  was  so  thin  and  shrill. 

"  Have  you  ever  tried — ever  been  a  woman,  for 
instance  ?" 

"  I've  had  a  sister,"  he  answered  softly.  "  That's 
almost  as  bad,  sometimes." 

She  had  never  heard  him  mention  his  sister 
before.  Now  the  story  that  Vladimir  had  told  her 
sprang  up  in  her  memory,  a  naked  spectre.  Who 
was  she,  indeed,  that  she  should  make  so  much  of 


OLIVE    LATHAM  183 

the  mere  ruin  of  her  personal  life?  Only  one  more 
in  a  long  list.  "  There  are  so  many  of  us,"  she 
thought ;  "  so  many  ..." 

Her  hand  shook  on  Karol's  arm.  "  I  forgot," 
she  said;  "  I  was  a  brute  to  remind  you  .  .  ." 

He  took  the  hand  and  held  it  with  strong  fingers. 

"  That's  all  right;  I  don't  forget.  Nor  will  you, 
but  you'll  get  accustomed,  like  the  rest  of  us,  both 
to  the  big  things  and  to  the  little  ones.  Take  the 
dirt,  for  instance.  When  a  new  man  comes  into 
one  of  the  provincial  prisons,  and  sees  the  wall  black 
with  cockroaches  and  bugs,  and  the  lice  swarming 
all  over  his  sleeping-bench,  it  nearly  drives  him  mad 
at  first,  then  he  gets  accustomed.  It's  the  same  way 
with  those  male  animals  in  there;  you  won't  feel 
them  after  a  bit." 

Olive  stopped  short  on  the  pavement.  Everyone's 
secrets,  it  seemed,  were  an  open  book  to  him;  but 
that  he  should  have  guessed  the  existence  of  this 
little  wound  brought  a  stifling  lump  into  her  throat. 
It  would  have  killed  her  to  speak  of  it,  she  thought ; 
and  he  knew  without  any  words. 

"  Karol  .  .  ."  She  had  never  called  him  by  his 
Christian  name  before.  "  Karol,  how  did  you 
know  .  .  ." 

"  My  girl,  you  are  not  the  first.  Our  women 
often  have  that  to  face  if  they  are  at  all  young  and 


184  OLIVE    LATHAM 

good  to  look  at.  I'm  not  sure  it  isn't  harder  for 
the  men  that  love  them  and  have  to  stand  by  and  see. 
But  try  and  remember  that  these  half-developed 
creatures  cannot  understand;  they  are  only  doing 
after  their  kind." 

She  bent  her  head,  ashamed  in  the  presence  of 
his  broad  and  patient  charity. 

"  Karol,"  she  asked  him  timidly,  at  last;  "how 
long  did  it  take  you  to  .  .  .  get  accustomed  ?" 

"  Oh,  not  so  long,  my  dear ;  two  or  three  years 
make  a  wonderful  difference." 

"  Two  or  .  .  .  three  .  .  .  years  .  .  ."  Her  voice 
died  away,  and  Karol's  fingers  tightened  on  her 
hand. 

"  And  now,"  he  said,  after  a  moment's  pause, 
"  we  will  try  the  gendarmerie.  But  you  must  have 
steady  nerves  for  that." 

"  Wait  a  minute;   let  me  think." 

He  walked  beside  her  without  speaking  till  she 
raised  her  head. 

"  I'm  ready  now." 

"  Hold  up  your  hand  first.  Yes,  that's  quite 
steady." 

He  waited  a  long  time  outside  the  Central  Depart- 
ment of  Gendarmerie.  When  she  came  out  her  face 
was  full  of  a  pitiful,  childish  distress. 

"  I'm  to  come  back  in  an  hour.    It's  my  own  fault 


OLIVE    LATHAM  185 

this  time.  I  muddled  somehow.  ...  I  understood 
I  was  to  wait  in  the  passage,  and  then  they  told  me 
I  ought  to  have  gone  through  to  the  inner  room. 
Fve  missed  my  turn." 

"  Oh,  my  God !"  broke  from  the  man.  Her  eyes 
dilated. 

"  Is  it  .  .  .  have  I  .  .  .  lost  my  chance?" 

"  No,  not  that;  but  it  looks  as  if  they  were  going 
to  chivy  you." 

He  hesitated  for  an  instant. 

"  You'd  better  understand  the  truth  at  once.  It's 
a  trick,  don't  you  see?  They  do  it  sometimes  with 
anyone  that  is  specially  defenceless.  Perhaps  you 
offended  one  of  them  last  night?  Or  it  may  be  just 
because  you  are  a  foreigner  and  have  no  friends 
here  but  us." 

She  only  said  in  a  scared  whisper :  "  I  don't 
understand  what  you  mean." 

She  understood  before  the  day  was  over.  The 
game  went  on  without  a  break  from  morning  till 
dusk.  She  was  sent  backwards  and  forwards; 
upstairs,  downstairs,  into  rooms  and  out  of  them, 
along  corridors,  and  corridors,  and  corridors  again — 
an  endless  treadmill  of  corridors.  From  the  gen- 
darmerie she  was  directed  back  to  the  central  police, 
from  there  to  the  Department  of  Prisons,  then  to 
the  gendarmerie  again.      Here   it   was   too   early, 


186  OLIVE    LATHAM 

there  too  late;  this  was  the  third  room,  and  she 
must  go  to  the  fourth;  that  the  fourth,  and  she 
should  have  stayed  in  the  third.  Some  of  the  offi- 
cials went  through  a  solemn  farce  of  mock  expla- 
nations; others  pushed  past  her  roughly,  or  flung 
curt  answers  and  turned  their  backs;  others,  again, 
laughed  openly  in  her  face;  a  few  muttered  some- 
thing hurriedly  and  looked  ashamed.  When  at  last 
it  ended  with :  ''  Too  late  now ;  come  at  ten  to- 
morrow morning,"  she  stumbled  blindly  to  where 
Karol  waited  at  the  street-corner  in  the  bitter  wind, 
and  clung  to  his  arm,  dazed  and  sick. 

He  took  her  to  her  lodgings,  forced  a  little  food 
upon  her,  and  made  her  lie  down.  Then  he  left  her, 
promising  to  come  back  early  in  the  morning,  and 
started  off  in  search  of  news.  He  had  some  faint 
hope  of  finding  out  the  truth  informally  through 
private  connections.  Olive  refused  his  offer  to  send 
a  woman  friend  to  stay  the  night  with  her. 

"  I  would  rather  be  alone,"  she  said,  and  turned 
her  face  to  the  wall. 

When  he  came  in  next  morning,  one  glance 
showed  him  what  the  night  had  been.  Her  eyes 
already  had  the  hunted  look  that  he  had  been 
watching  and  dreading  to  see.    He  said  to  her : 

"  I  have  not  much  news ;  but  I've  found  out  where 
he  is.    They  took  him  to  the  fortress." 


OLIVE    LATHAM  187 

"The  prison  in  the  river?  Ah!  .  .  ."  She  put 
her  hand  over  her  eyes,  shuddering. 

"  It  doesn't  matter  much,  my  dear.  Whatever  the 
conditions  are,  he  won't  feel  them.'* 

"  Are  you  so  sure  of  that  ?" 

"  I  think,  even  if  he  is  still  alive,  he  can  scarcely 
be  conscious  now." 

She  began  to  laugh. 

"  You  forget ;  I'm  a  sick-nurse,  and  pretty  lies 
won't  help  me.  He  may  live  a  week  yet,  and  be 
conscious  all  the  time." 

"  Not  there,"  he  said  softly. 

In  the  evening  he  brought  her  home  to  her  lodg- 
ings again,  this  time  in  dead  silence.  He  could 
already  see  the  little  signs  of  breaking  down;  the 
hands  twitching  in  her  lap,  the  film  across  her  eyes ; 
and  this  was  only  the  second  day.  He  sat  beside 
her  in  the  sledge  with  clenched  teeth ;  he  had  known 
the  game  of  chivying  go  on  merrily  for  a  week  or 
more.  As  for  her,  to  the  end  of  her  life  she  would 
see  hell  as  a  labyrinth  of  white  corridors,  of  false 
directions,  of  smiling  faces. 

"  To-morrow  morning,"  a  suave  official  had  said 
to  her  as  she  passed  out  with  wide,  blind  eyes. 

Karol  left  her  at  the  street-door  of  the  house 
where  she  lodged. 

"  Gk)  in  and  lie  down,"  he  said.     "  Perhaps  I  may 


188  OLIVE    LATHAM 

be  able  to  get  some  news  this  evening.  I'll  come 
and  see  you  later." 

His  fruitless  search  went  on  for  hours.  Coming 
back  to  her  lodgings  late  at  night,  the  big  man 
stopped  half-way  up  the  stairs  and  leaned  against 
the  banisters,  dizzy  and  aching  with  fatigue.  He 
was  so  tired  that  for  one  moment  his  courage 
failed  him  at  the  thought  of  telling  her  that  he 
had  still  no  news.  But  it  must  be  done;  she  would 
sit  up  waiting  all  night  if  he  did  not  come.  He 
stumbled  two  or  three  times  on  the  way  up,  catch- 
ing his  feet  against  the  steps,  and  paused  again  at 
the  top  to  leave  off  trembling. 

"  The  lady  is  out,"  the  sleepy  maid-servant  told 
him.  ''  She  has  not  been  home  since  she  went  out 
with  you  in  the  morning." 

Karol  went  down  the  stairs  again,  and  stood  for 
a  moment  on  the  doorstep,  thinking.  It  was  just 
possible  that  she  herself  had  been  arrested  in  the 
moment  of  entering  the  house,  but  that  was  so  un- 
likely that  he  put  the  thought  aside.  Probably  she 
was  wandering  about  the  streets.  If  so,  she  would 
be  sure  to  find  her  way,  sooner  or  later,  towards  the 
fortress. 

A  sudden  fear  brought  the  sweat  out  on  the 
palms  of  his  hands.  She  might  have  strayed  to 
the  park  on  the  landward  side  of  the  fortress.     A 


OLIVE    LATHAM  189 

lonely  place,  infested  after  dark  by  criminals  and 
prowlers,  it  was  dangerous  enough  for  a  woman 
alone  on  any  night  in  the  year;  but  in  carnival 
time  .  .  .  He  hailed  the  first  sledge,  drove  at  a 
tearing  pace  across  the  bridge,  and  searched  the 
alleys  of  the  park  and  the  black  lines  of  the  forti- 
fications and  shut  gateway.  Close  to  him  the  bells 
of  the  spire  jangled  their  eternal  chant :  ''  Lord, 
have  mercy!  Lord,  have  mercy!  Lord,  have 
mercy !" 

He  gave  up  the  search  in  the  park,  and  recrossed 
the  bridge  to  look  for  her  on  the  palace  quay,  op- 
posite the  water-gate  of  the  fortress.  On  the  open 
quay  the  wind  was  very  bitter,  and  snow  dashed 
in  his  face  as  he  drove.  Below  the  granite  wall  of 
the  embankment  the  frozen  river  lay  as  dead  under 
a  pall  of  black  sky. 

He  found  her  crouching  away  from  the  wind 
in  a  niche  of  the  parapet,  staring  across  the  broad 
expanse  of  ice.  From  the  water-gate  on  the  oppo- 
site side  the  twin  lights  known  as  ''  the  wolf's  eyes" 
stared  back  at  her  with  a  steady  and  unwinking 
gleam. 

He  left  the  sledge  waiting  at  a  little  distance. 
Her  shrinking  movement  at  the  sound  of  his  foot- 
steps showed  him  that  he  was  not  the  first  man 
who  had  approached  her  that  night. 


190  OLIVE    LATHAM 

"  Olive,  come  home." 

She  turned  with  a  cry,  and  clung  to  him,  panic- 
stricken,  desperate,  gasping  for  breath. 

"  Karol,  Karol— oh,  Karol !" 

"  Come  home,"  he  said,  and  put  his  arms  round 
her.    ''  Poor  child !  come  home." 

But  she  shrank  away  again. 

"No,  no,  I  can't;   I  daren't!" 

She  seemed  half  paralyzed  with  cold;  he  could 
scarcely  understand  her  speech. 

"  I  have  tried  ...  so  many  times  .  .  .  the  stairs 
.  .  .  they're  all  dark  ...  I  can't  go  in  .  .  .  Karol, 
I  shall  see  ghosts — I  shall  see  ghosts !" 

"  Lord,  have  mercy !  Lord,  have  mercy !  Lord, 
have  mercy!"  the  piercing  jangle  of  the  fortress 
bells  repeated;  and,  with  a  false  leading-note  from 
one  cracked  bell,  went  on  to  the  hourly  hymn-tune: 
"  How  glorious  is  our  Lord  in  Sion !" 

Karol  beckoned  to  the  sledge-driver. 

"  I'll  take  you  to  my  place ;  you  shan't  see  ghosts 
there.    Get  in." 

She  obeyed  passively,  turning  her  head  to  look 
back  at  the  wolf's  eyes.  The  harsh  chime  still  beat 
against  her  ears :  "  How  glorious  is  our  Lord  in 
Sion!" 

She  seemed  scarcely  conscious,  and  lay  with  her 
head  on  his  shoulder  most  of  the  way.     Arrived  at 


OLIVE    LATHAM  191 

his  lodgings,  he  awaked  the  people  of  the  house, 
and  set  them  to  make  tea  and  heat  food.  Then 
he  took  off  her  wraps,  laid  her  on  his  bed,  and 
chafed  her  feet  and  hands.  Very  soon  her  frozen 
stupor  passed  into  sleep.  He  remained  sitting  by 
the  bed,  too  tired  to  move. 

She  sprang  up  screaming,  with  both  hands  over 
her  eyes. 

"  Ah,  the  snow — the  snow !" 

He  caught  her  in  his  arms  and  held  her  close  to 
him. 

"  Karol,  he  called  me !  I  heard  him  call  me ! 
they're  stifling  him  with  snow !  .  .  ." 

"  Hush,  hush!  lie  down!   he  doesn't  feel  it  now." 

It  was  impossible  to  quiet  her;  she  paced  the 
room  like  a  caged  thing.  Presently  she  began  to 
laugh. 

"  They  told  me  to-day  there  was  nothing  seri- 
ous against  him,  and  he  would  probably  soon  be  re- 
leased .  .  .  soon  be  ,  .  ." 

"  Sit  down,"  Karol  interrupted.  He  had  crossed 
the  room  and  was  unlocking  a  cupboard. 

She  obeyed,  with  a  frightened  whisper :  "  You're 
not  .  .  .  going  out?" 

"  Of  course  not ;  I  promised  you  I  wouldn't 
leave  you." 

He  came  back  with  a  hypodermic  needle;    and. 


192  OLIVE    LATHAM 

stooping  over  her  shoulder,  Hfted  her  right  hand 
and  injected  morphia  into  the  wrist.  When  her 
head  dropped  on  to  the  table,  he  lifted  her  in  his 
arms  and  laid  her  on  the  bed ;  then  sat  down  beside 
the  pillow  and  watched  her  as  she  slept. 

Such  as  it  was,  this  night  was  all  he  would  have 
of  his  own  to  go  on  living  with.  To  her,  it  would 
remain  a  vague  blur  of  horror;  as  for  him,  when 
it  was  over  his  personal  life  would  be  over  too. 
Still,  he  had  probably  saved  her  from  some  local 
hospital  or  madhouse;  and  for  the  rest,  there  was 
his  work.  He  had  that,  at  least;  so  long  as  he 
could  do  it,  there  was  always  his  work  to  do. 

The  window-panes  rattled  faintly;  from  long 
distance  came  a  jangling  of  bells :  "  Lord,  have 
mercy!     Lord,  have  mercy!" 

He  dropped  his  head  suddenly  on  to  the  girl's  un- 
conscious hand;   his  shoulders  heaved  a  little. 

When  she  woke  in  the  morning  he  was  making 
coffee.  She  stared  at  him  vacantly;  then  remem- 
bered and  tried  to  jump  up,  but  fell  back  with  both 
hands  to  her  temples. 

''  No  hurry ;  it's  early  yet,"  he  said,  looking 
round  with  a  nod  and  smile.  ^'  Your  head  will  be 
better  when  you've  had  a  cup  of  coffee." 

She  sat  up,  slowly  and  painfully. 


OLIVE    LATHAM  193 

"  Oh,  I've  kept  you  up  all  night !  Why  did  you 
let  me  do  it?    You've  had  no  sleep." 

"  I  ?  My  dear,  I  slept  like  a  top,  there  on  the 
chair.  Do  you  want  to  get  up  now?  The  clean 
towels  are  here,  and  there's  the  warm  water.  I'll 
go  and  have  a  smoke." 

When  she  called  him  he  came  in  with  an  official- 
looking  blue  paper  in  his  hand.  His  face  darkened 
as  he  read  it. 

"  Would  your  father  come  if  you  telegraphed  for 
him?"  he  asked  after  stirring  his  coffee  for  a  long 
time  in  silence. 

"  My  father?  I  wouldn't  bring  him  here  for  the 
world." 

"  Is  there  anyone  else  ?  I  can't  leave  you  here 
alone,  and  I  have  to  go  away  to-morrow." 

Her  hands  fell.    "  You  are  going  away?" 

'*  I  have  no  choice  but  to  go  or  be  taken  by  force. 
My  permit  is  up,  and  I  applied  to  the  police  for  a 
few  days'  grace.  This  is  a  refusal;  they  give  me 
till  the  morning  train  to-morrow." 

She  rose  and  began  to  put  on  her  wraps.  "  It's 
time  to  start  now;  as  for  to-morrow,  if  you  must 
go  you  must,  but  I  don't  want  anyone  else." 

"  We  will  discuss  that  later.  By  the  way,  the 
porter  has  your  travelling-pass  ready  when  you  want 
it.    You  have  only  to  sign." 

13 


194  OLIVE    LATHAM 

"  But  they  changed  my  passport  for  another 
paper  when  I  got  here." 

"  Yes,  for  as  long  as  you  stay.  You  can't  cross 
the  frontier  without  having  your  EngHsh  passport 
back  and  a  permit  from  the  authorities.  I  made  an 
appHcation  in  your  name  the  day  before  yesterday." 

"  But  I  can't  go  yet.    I  can't  leave  here  till  .  .  ." 

Her  voice  came  to  a  little  quiver,  and  stopped. 

"  I  know  that ;  but  when  you  do  want  to  go  you 
might  have  to  wait  for  permission,  so  I  got  it  done 
quickly  through  friends.  If  you  don't  use  it  this 
week  you  have  only  to  make  another  application. 
And  here  is  money  for  the  journey,  and  a  little 
English  gold  to  take  you  through;  if  you  want  to 
leave  in  a  hurry  after  I  go  you  mayn't  have  time  to 
get  it  from  the  bank." 

"  Karol,  do  you  always  think  of  everything  for 
everyone?" 

She  lifted  her  eyes  to  his  face,  and  saw  the  mouth 
twitch  for  an  instant  before  it  settled  into  the  old 
uncompromising  line. 

"  Not  for  everyone,"  he  said,  and  took  up  his 
hat. 

His  Excellency  was  engaged,  she  was  told  on 
asking  to  see  the  Director  of  Police;  but  the  same 
secretary  she  spoke  to  yesterday  would  see  her. 

He  looked  up  smiling  as  she  entered  the  room, 


OLIVE    LATHAM  195 

and  she  grew  cold  with  dread.  She  had  cause 
enough  to  remember  him  already,  but  this  was  the 
first  time  she  saw  him  smile. 

"  Let  me  see ;  you  come  about  .  .  .  ?" 

"  Vladimir  Damarov." 

"Ah,  yes,  of  course.  Not  a  relative,  I  think? 
Engaged  to  him,  if  I  remember  rightly  ?" 

"  Yes." 

He  shook  his  head  compassionately. 

"  Dear,  dear !  And  couldn't  you  find  a  better 
sweetheart  than  that,  a  handsome  girl  like  you  ?" 

Karol  was  right,  it  seemed;  one  could  get  ac- 
customed.   This  time  she  scarcely  winced. 

"  He  doesn't  seem  to  care  much  about  you,  any- 
way," the  secretary  went  on.  "  I  saw  him  last 
night,  and  he  was  quite  indifferent." 

She  stood  still  and  looked  at  him.  He  leaned 
back  in  his  chair,  stroking  his  moustache  with  slow 
enjoyment. 

"  Quite  indifferent,  I  assure  you.  Perhaps  you 
had  better  find  another  sweetheart.  Good-morn- 
ing." 

In  the  corridor  two  officers  in  blue  and  silver 
stood  talking.  One  of  them  looked  round  as  she 
passed,  and  then  came  after  her. 

"  Is  it  you  that  have  been  inquiring  about  Da- 
marov  ?'* 


196  OLIVE    LATHAM 

"  Yes." 

"  And  those  .  .  ."  he  jerked  his  head  towards 
the  secretary's  room.  "  They've  been  telling  you 
lies  in  there,  eh?" 

She  was  silent.    He  dropped  his  voice. 

"  Don't  let  them  fool  you.  He  died  yesterday. 
I'm  .  .  .  sorry  for  you." 

He  went  back  to  his  companion. 

H:  H^  ^  ^  ^ 

"  Of  course,"  she  said  to  Karol,  as  he  stooped  to 
unfasten  her  cloak.  "  It  may  be  true.  But  what 
proof  have  I?" 

They  had  walked  back  to  her  lodgings  in  silence. 
He  knelt  down  and  took  off  her  overshoes  before 
answering. 

"  What  was  the  man  like  who  spoke  to  you  in  the 
corridor  ?" 

"  I  didn't  notice  much.  A  big  man  with  a  red- 
dish moustache  going  gray." 

*'  With  a  hooked  nose  and  a  colonel's  uniform  ?" 

"  I  think  so." 

"  That  is  Petrov.  He's  all  right ;  about  the  most 
decent  man  they  have  there.    Then  it's  true." 

"  Perhaps,  but  it  may  be  a  joke.  There  have 
been  so  many  jokes." 

He  could  not  shake  her  passive,  stubborn,  hope- 
less disbelief.     To  all  that  he  said  she  answered, 


OLIVE    LATHAM  197 

over  and  over  again :  "  How  can  I  know  it's  not 
another  joke?" 

"  Will  it  help  you  if  I  bring  you  proofs?"  he  said 
at  last. 

"Proofs?     What  proofs?" 

"  I  am  not  sure,  mind ;  my  time  is  so  short.  But 
if  I  can  find  a  man — not  one  of  these,  but  a  decent 
man — who  actually  saw  him  dead  ..." 

She  whispered  to  herself,  twisting  her  fingers  to- 
gether :  "  if  I  could  know  he  is  dead  ...  if  I  could 
know  .  .  ." 

"  I  will  try,"  Karol  said.  "  Wait  here  for  me;  I 
may  be  gone  some  time." 

He  came  back  in  the  afternoon,  and  found  her 
sitting  where  he  had  left  her,  looking  down  at  the 
thin  clasped  hands  in  her  lap.  She  raised  her  eyes 
as  he  came  in  and  let  them  fall  again. 

"  Put  on  your  warmest  clothes  and  come  out 
with  me." 

She  obeyed,  asking  no  questions.  They  sat  for 
a  long  time  in  a  dirty,  crowded  tram,  among  work- 
people in  holiday  dress,  and  were  set  down  at  last 
in  a  factory  suburb  by  the  river-side.  The  place  was 
riotous  with  dancing  and  horseplay ;  hawkers  thrust 
sweetmeats,  toys,  and  gaudy  ribbons  in  their  faces 
as  they  walked.  Rival  sledges,  racing,  overladen 
with  men,  women,  and  children  clinging,  laughing, 


198  OLIVE    LATHAM 

shrieking  together,  passed  with  a  wild,  swaying 
rush,  scattering  the  crowd  to  left  and  right.  The 
drivers,  standing  up,  their  long  whips  circling  over- 
head, urged  on  their  horses  with  yells  which  the 
crowd  took  up  and  echoed  in  chorus.  Carnival  was 
degenerating  into  a  drunken  orgie. 

Further  on,  where  the  houses  left  off,  the  road  was 
quiet.  On  one  side  was  the  low,  uneven  bank,  with 
a  few  stunted  willows  crouched  beside  the  broad, 
still,  ice-bound  river.  On  the  other  was  a  cemetery 
wall,  and  beyond  that  a  waste  of  unreclaimed  swamp. 
Here  and  there  gaunt  companies  of  huddled  bushes 
cowered,  naked  to  the  wind  and  rattling  barren 
twigs.  A  pale  crescent  moon  came  up  in  front ;  be- 
hind, the  distant  city  lay  under  a  red  and  smoky 
sunset. 

They  left  the  road  a  little  way  beyond  the  ceme- 
tery, where  a  track  of  footprints  crossed  the  snow  to 
the  starved  and  scattered  brushwood.  Karol,  still 
silent,  led  the  way  from  track  to  track,  from  clump  to 
clump ;  and  the  girl  followed  like  a  sleep-walker. 

They  had  described  a  wide  half-circle  through  the 
swamp,  and  now  approached  the  cemetery  on  the  side 
furthest  from  the  road.  A  ditch,  with  an  earthen 
dyke  thrown  up  behind  it,  marked  the  boundary  of 
the  consecrated  ground.  Within  the  enclosure 
stretched  long  rows  of  open,  empty  graves;   oblong 


OLIVE    LATHAM  199 

pits  dug  wholesale  beforehand  and  waiting,  half- 
choked  with  snow,  for  future  tenants.  The  frozen 
mud  was  piled  up  between  in  even  heaps,  ready  to 
be  shovelled  down.  The  further  ends  of  the  rows 
were  already  occupied,  and  little  wooden  crosses,  all 
of  the  same  pattern,  stood  at  the  heads.  This  was 
the  military  cemetery,  and  the  rows  were  numbered 
according  to  companies.  Here  and  there  a  taller 
cross  marked  the  grave  of  a  corporal  or  sergeant. 
Further  in  was  the  pauper  burying-ground ;  a  jum- 
ble of  shallow  graves,  carelessly  scooped  in  the  mud, 
and  crosses  made  from  scraps  of  deal  board  nailed 
together,  rotting  and  falling  awry.  In  the  distance 
the  tombstones  and  gaudy  chapel  of  the  privileged 
dead  gleamed  white  in  the  gathering  dusk. 

A  man  came  out  from  behind  a  clump  of  dwarf 
willows.  The  girl  looked  round  as  he  approached 
them,  and  shuddered  faintly  at  the  sight  of  the  blue 
uniform.    Karol  went  up  to  him. 

"  I  am  very  grateful  to  you  for  coming.  It's  quite 
safe;  there's  no  one  about.  This  is  the  woman  he 
was  to  have  married.    Tell  her  what  you  can." 

The  gendarme  cast  a  furtive  glance  at  her  and 
looked  down  again,  crunching  a  clod  of  ice  under  his 
boot.  He  was  quite  young,  with  a  large  meek  face 
and  watery  blue,  round,  frightened  eyes. 

"  I  was  on  night  duty  in  the  corridor,  lady,"  he 


200  OLIVE    LATHAM 

began  in  the  broad,  mouthing  speech  of  the  Volga 
provinces,  and  stopped. 

''In  the  fortress,  when  they  brought  him  in?" 
Karol  said. 

"  May  it  please  your  honour,  it  was  nearly  morn- 
ing. Yes,  I  saw  him  carried  down  the  corridor.  He 
turned  his  head  round  and  looked  at  me.  He  didn't 
say  anything.    They  put  him  in  the  third  cell." 

"Alone?" 

"  Alone,  lady.  He  was  quite  quiet.  I  didn't  hear 
a  sound  all  the  morning,  except  that  he  coughed 
sometimes.  Only  when  Vassilych  carried  in  the 
dinner  I  heard  him  say  something  very  softly." 

"  Is  Vassilych  the  warder?" 

"  He  was  on  duty,  taking  the  food  round.  He 
came  out  very  angry  and  said  to  me :  '  It's  a  sin  to 
waste  good  cabbage  soup  like  that,  putting  it  down 
by  a  half-dead  man  that  never  even  looks  at  it.  I'd 
be  glad  of  it  myself,'  he  said  .  .  ." 

"  Was  Vassilych  the  only  person  who  went  in?" 

"  The  head-warder  went  in  last  thing  at  night,  your 
honour,  with  the  doctor;  but  they  came  out  again 
directly.  I  heard  the  doctor  say:  '  What's  the  use? 
He  can't  last  till  morning.'    He  did  though." 

"  How  long  did  he  live?" 

"  Till  the  next  afternoon ;  that's  yesterday.  I  was 
on  night  duty  again.     I  had  eight  hours  off  after 


OLIVE    LATHAM  201 

dinner,  you  understand.  So  when  I  came  on  again 
in  the  evening  I  heard  him  begin  to  moan  and  talk  to 
himself.  I  couldn't  make  out  what  he  said.  He 
made  a  scratching  noise  in  his  throat  in  the  night, 
and  once  I  heard  him  say :  '  Water.'  Then  Osip 
came  on  again  at  six  in  the  morning,  and  I  went 
off  duty." 

*'  Was  Osip  on  duty  all  yesterday?" 

"  Yes,  your  honour.  He's  here  in  the  village  now ; 
we  both  have  the  day  off,  because  of  carnival.  He 
went  and  got  drunk  first  thing ;  he  said  to  me :  *  A 
man  must  get  drunk  in  our  work,  else  there's  no 
standing  it.'  He  said :  '  I  can  hear  that  moaning 
now,  and :  "  Water !  water !  water !  for  God's 
sake !"  '    Osip  was  always  tender-hearted." 

"  Did  he  take  any  water  in  ?" 

"  Lady,  who  would  dare  to  go  in  ?  It's  against 
orders." 

"  That  will  do,  I  think,"  Karol  said,  and  put  a 
hand  on  Olive's  shoulder.  "  Haven't  you  heard 
enough,  my  dear?" 

"  Let  me  alone ;  I  must  know  everything.  Then 
he  died  yesterday  afternoon,  while  you  were  off 
duty?" 

"  Yes,  lady.  Osip  said  he  heard  it  get  softer  and 
softer ;  and  then  a  noise  like  sawing  wood,  he  said ; 
and  then  it  was  quiet.    So  in  the  night  we  were  sent 


202  OLIVE    LATHAM 

in  to  fetch  the  body.  We  were  given  a  box  to  put 
him  in — no,  not  a  coffin,  a  big  deal  box.  Then  we 
came  out  by  the  water-gate — ^that  would  be  about 
two  in  the  night — and  brought  him  down  here." 

"  Is  he  buried  here  ?    Can  I  see  the  grave  ?" 

He  looked  at  her  in  a  timid,  sidelong  way. 

"  It's  .  .  .  not  what  you  might  call  a  grave,  lady ; 
not  a  Christian  grave.    Yes,  I'll  show  you." 

Just  outside  the  consecrated  enclosure  a  few  clods 
had  a  broken  look.  A  little  snow  had  been  stamped 
in  to  hide  the  marks  of  the  pickaxe.  The  man 
stopped,  and,  seeing  Karol  bareheaded,  pulled  off  his 
own  cap;  then  knelt  down  and  felt  about  with  his 
hands  in  the  snow. 

"  Here  it  is." 

He  uncovered  the  head  of  a  wooden  stake  driven 
into  the  ground. 

"  They  put  that  so  as  not  to  dig  again  in  the  same 
place,"  Karol  explained  softly. 

"  It's  a  bit  shallow,"  the  man  said,  scrambling 
awkwardly  to  his  feet.  "  We  had  a  job  to  make  the 
hole  at  all;  everything's  frozen  so  hard." 

Olive  stood  looking  at  him  across  the  broken 
clods. 

"  Are  you  sure  he  was  dead  before  you  put  him  in 
the  hole?" 

He  gave  a  little  gasp,  looked  from  her  to  Karol, 


OLIVE    LATHAM  203 

and  back  again  to  her ;  then  raised  an  unsteady  hand 
and  crossed  himself. 

"  Christ  be  with  you,  lady !  Did  you  think  we 
would  bury  a  live  man  ?" 

"  How  should  I  know  ?"  she  answered  in  the  same 
soundless,  even  voice. 

Karol  touched  the  sleeve  of  the  blue  uniform. 

"  You  saw  his  face?    Tell  her." 

"  Yes,  I  saw  .  .  ."  He  shivered.  "  He  .  .  .  had 
struggled.  There  was  blood  on  his  shirt.  He  was 
quite  cold." 

"  There,  that  will  do,"  Karol  said.  "  Go  back  by 
the  ditch,  and  we'll  go  round  the  other  way;  it's 
safer  so.    Good-bye,  and  thank  you." 

The  man  crossed  himself  again  and  went  away, 
leaving  them  standing  by  the  grave.  It  was  growing 
dark.  After  some  time  Karol  touched  her  on  the 
arm. 

"  Come." 

They  walked  back  through  the  willow  scrub. 

"  There's  one  thing  that  you  will  find  good  to 
remember,"  he  said.  ''  Whatever  has  been,  he  is 
dead;  and  there  is  nothing  more  that  they  can  do. 
That's  poor  comfort,  but  I  was  glad  of  it  after  my 
sister  died." 

She  turned  her  head  slowly  and  looked  into  his 
eyes. 


204  OLIVE    LATHAM 

''  And  I  am  glad.  But  are  you  quite  sure  he  was 
dead  before  they  put  him  down  there?" 

"  Quite  sure,  my  dear." 

***** 

She  left  for  England  by  the  night  express.  It  was 
the  only  opportunity  for  Karol  to  see  her  safely  out 
of  the  town  before  his  own  forced  departure  in  the 
morning.  It  was  he  who  packed  her  luggage,  settled 
her  bills,  and  took  her  ticket.  She  remained  abso- 
lutely passive,  eating,  dressing,  moving  when  he  told 
her  to,  and  breaking  silence  only  to  ask  from  time  to 
time,  always  in  the  same  still  way :  "  Are  you  quite 
sure  he  was  dead  before  .  .  .  ?" 

"  Quite  sure,"  he  would  answer. 

She  asked  him  the  same  thing  again  as  he  stooped 
to  put  the  rug  about  her  feet  in  the  railway-carriage. 

''  Quite  sure,"  he  said  once  more. 

A  bell  rang ;  a  voice  called :  ''  Take  your  seats !" 
He  jumped  out,  and  the  door  was  locked. 

"  That  was  the  second  bell ;  they'll  start  in  a 
moment.  I  have  telegraphed  to  your  people  to  meet 
you  at  Dover." 

"  Karol  .  .  ." 

She  raised  a  hand  to  her  forehead,  trying  to  re- 
member something.  He  put  his  foot  on  the  step  and 
leaned  in  at  the  window. 

"Yes?" 


OLIVE    LATHAM  205 

It  was  the  same  question,  the  only  one  on  earth 
that  mattered  to  her  at  all. 

"  Are  you  quite  sure  he  was  dead  before  they  put 
him  in  the  hole?" 

He  answered  with  the  same  tireless  patience : 

**  Quite  sure,  my  dear." 

The  third  bell  rang.    He  stretched  a  hand  to  her. 

"  Good-bye.  I  will  come  to  England  and  see  you 
when  I  can." 

Her  eyes  looked  out  beyond  him  with  a  fixed,  un- 
changing stare.  The  train  began  to  move.  When 
it  was  out  of  sight  he  turned  to  walk  back  along  the 
platform,  and  stopped  short  with  both  hands  at  his 
throat.    A  porter  came  up  to  him. 

"Are  you  ill,  sir?    Can  I  .  .  ." 

"  Get  me  .  .  .  brandy,"  Karol  whispered.  He 
was  choking  like  a  hysterical  schoolgirl. 

The  man  ran  off  to  the  refreshment-bar;  and 
Karol,  following  him  blindly,  stumbled  against  a 
passer-by,  who  first  looked  round,  annoyed,  then 
held  out  his  hand  with  an  exclamation  of  surprise. 

"  Dr.  Slavinski !    Why,  who  would  have  .  .  ." 

Karol  shoved  him  savagely  aside. 

"  Go  to  the  devil !"  he  said.    "  I  want  a  drink." 


i 


PART  II 


CHAPTER    I 

It  was  Dick  Grey  who  met  Olive  on  Dover  Pier. 
Her  father  had  an  engagement,  and  Dick,  by  this 
time  a  family  friend,  offered  himself  as  a  substitute. 

When  she  came  up  the  gangway  he  hurried 
through  the  crowd  to  meet  her ;  then  broke  off  in  the 
middle  of  his  first  cheerful  greeting,  and  stood  look- 
ing at  her.  She  seemed  not  to  notice  the  change  in 
his  manner,  but  mechanically  let  him  take  her  bag 
and  conduct  her  to  the  train. 

He  waited  a  long  time  before  daring  to  speak 
otherwise  than  of  necessary  trifles.  At  last  he  put 
down  his  newspaper  and  leaned  across  to  her.  The 
train  was  running  through  bare  hopfields,  and  she 
sat  looking  out  over  them,  quite  still. 

"  Olive,  is  he  .  .  ." 

"Dead,"  she  answered  without  moving;  and  he 
had  instinct  enough  to  ask  no  more. 

Her  own  people  were  less  tactful.  They  merci- 
fully refrained  from  questioning  her ;  but  even  ques- 
tions could  hardly  have  been  worse  than  the  blank 
surprise  in  her  father's  face  at  sight  of  her,  the  grow- 
ing horror  as  she  approached  him,  the  sudden,  sharp 

cry :  "  Good  God,  it's  Olive !"  the  attempt  to  redeem 

14  209 


210  OLIVE    LATHAM 

appearances :  "  You  quite  startled  us,  my  dear ;  we 
expected  you  by  the  later  train."  Jenny,  for  her  part, 
stared  for  a  moment,  then  burst  out  crying  and  ran 
from  the  room;  and  the  mother's  face  was  worst 
of  all. 

Their  first  impression  was  that  she  must  be  dying 
of  a  wasting  disease,  or  have  caught  some  pernicious 
malarial  fever.  They  pressed  her  to  see  a  doctor. 
She  refused  at  first,  protesting  wearily  that  there  was 
nothing  the  matter  with  her ;  but  when  they  persisted 
she  gave  way,  to  save  the  trouble  of  further  dis- 
cussion, and  let  her  father  bring  her  to  London  to 
a  Harley  Street  consultant. 

"  A  bad  case  of  anaemia  and  nervous  breakdown," 
the  doctor  said.  ''  There  is  nothing  else  the  matter 
with  her.  Probably  she  has  had  a  shock,  or  has 
something  on  her  mind." 

"  But  look  at  her !"  Mrs.  Latham  cried  out,  when 
she  was  told  the  verdict.  "  She's  wasted  to  a  skele- 
ton; her  lips  are  like  parchment;  the  colour  is  all 
gone  out  of  her  hair.  How  can  he  say  it's  only 
that!" 

Unhappily,  it  was  only  that.  Had  the  girl  been 
by  nature  less  strong  and  healthy,  she  might  perhaps 
have  had  a  bad  illness,  which  would  have  brought 
her  the  one  relief  possible:  an  interruption  in  the 
continuity  of  her  daily  life.     But  her  body  was  too 


OLIVE    LATHAM  211 

sound  for  that,  and  nothing  happened  beyond  a 
gradual  and  apparently  hopeless  general  breakdown. 
She  was,  as  her  mother  had  put  it :  "  wasted  to  a 
skeleton,"  and  grew,  in  spite  of  all  their  care,  steadily 
thinner.  Within  three  months  she  had  become  so 
weak  that  to  walk  down  the  garden  would  set  her 
panting  for  breath,  and  her  heart  would  thump  un- 
evenly at  the  exertion  of  mounting  half  a  flight  of 
stairs.  She  suffered  fearfully  from  sleeplessness, 
from  atrocious  headaches,  from  nightmares  and  fits 
of  shivering;  otherwise  there  was  nothing  at  all  the 
matter  with  her. 

During  the  first  months  no  question  as  to  the 
future  was  raised  in  the  house,  nor  did  the  girl 
herself  trouble  to  think  of  it.  She  had  come  back 
partly  at  the  bidding  of  some  blind  homing  instinct, 
partly  because  Karol  had  told  her  to  do  so,  and 
because  she  had  not  enough  interest  in  life  to  dis- 
obey. Being  at  home,  she  stayed  there  passively, 
and  accepted,  or  endured,  the  thousand  little  things 
in  which  her  mother's  love  expressed  itself ;  the  beef- 
tea  and  malt  extract,  the  timid  caresses ;  with  a  dull 
and  stolid  indifference. 

Indeed,  she  had  become  indifferent  to  all  things, 
even  to  the  memory  of  her  dead  lover.  Some  day, 
perhaps,  she  might  begin  to  feel  her  loss ;  but  as  yet 
she  felt  only  the  furious  aching  in  the  back  of  her 


212  OLIVE    LATHAM 

head,  and  the  wheel  that  raced  round  and  round  and 
would  not  stop  through  hour  after  hour  of  inter- 
minable sleepless  nights. 

If  she  could  sleep,  she  told  herself  at  first,  nothing 
would  matter.  It  was  only  this  hideous  lying  awake 
that  made  her  so  frightened  when  the  dusk  came,  so 
heavy  and  cold  by  day.  She  would  be  her  own  self 
again  if  only  she  could  sleep.  Before  the  spring  was 
over  she  had  begun  to  assure  herself  that  all  would 
be  well  if  only  she  could  keep  awake. 

At  the  worst,  the  waking  mind  can  fight  in  its 
own  defence,  can  call  out  such  will-power  as  nature 
has  given;  but  when  asleep,  what  can  one  do? 
She  stood  appalled  at  the  injustice,  the  underhand 
treachery  of  this  universal  need  for  sleep,  which  she 
now  saw  for  the  first  time  as  a  trap  laid  to  catch  the 
most  wary.  Plan  out  your  life,  your  thoughts,  your 
actions  how  you  will,  discipline  your  nature  to  follow 
as  a  dog  at  the  heels  of  your  reason ;  some  time  you 
must  sleep,  and  be  delivered  over,  gagged  and  tied, 
to  the  machine  in  your  head  that  will  not  leave  off 
fashioning  images. 

But  for  these  nightmare  images  she  could  surely 
have  managed,  somehow,  to  forget.  They  trooped 
past  in  endless  chains:  images  of  ice  and  swamp 
and  blinding  snow,  of  digging  in  the  frozen  mud  to 
find  out  whether  he  had  struggled,  whether  he  was 


OLIVE    LATHAM  213 

really  dead  before  they  put  him  in  the  hole ;  images 
of  laughing  faces,  of  satisfied  red  mouths  that  whis- 
pered obscenities ;  images  of  corridors,  of  corridors, 
of  never-ending  whitewashed  corridors.  Sometimes, 
lost  among  the  corridors,  she  wandered  all  night 
long,  guided  only  by  a  thin  voice  calling  from  the 
distance:  "Water!  water!  water!"  Sometimes  the 
same  cry  would  come  up,  very  faintly,  from  under 
broken  clods  of  ice,  while  she  slipped  and  stumbled 
between  graves,  and,  stretching  out  her  hands  for 
help  in  the  darkness,  struck  them  against  the  heads 
of  wooden  stakes. 

Often  her  mother  or  sister,  roused  at  night,  would 
run  into  her  room,  and  find  her  sleeping  with  wide- 
open  eyes  and  whispering  hurriedly  things  that  they 
could  not  understand.  But  when  awakened  she 
would  say :  ''  A  nightmare,"  and  would  lie  down  as 
if  to  sleep  again,  though  her  eyes  were  wild  with 
fear.  By  day  she  was  mostly  taciturn,  but  sometimes 
over-talkative,  chattering  restlessly  of  trifles,  laugh- 
ing over  small,  stale  jokes;  yet  neither  mood  made 
any  difference  to  her  ferocious  reserve.  And  her 
people  understood  nothing;  indeed,  had  she  told 
them  all,  they  still  would  not  have  understood. 

To  Jenny,  the  pet  child  of  the  household,  the 
home-coming  of  this  changeling  sister  was  the  first 
shock  of  real  and  grievous  disappointment  which  she 


214  OLIVE    LATHAM 

had  ever  known.  During  the  past  half-year  she  had 
reached  that  stage  of  development  at  which  an  inno- 
cently vain  and  thoughtless  girl  becomes  suddenly 
impressed  with  a  sense  of  her  duty ;  and,  being  of  a 
malleable  and  imitative  nature,  she  had  been  ear- 
nestly trying  to  model  herself  upon  the  absent  elder 
sister.  ''  I  shall  never  be  as  clever  as  Olive  is,"  she 
had  told  her  mother;  "  but  I  will  try  to  be  as  good." 
The  resolution  was,  no  doubt,  partly  inspired  by  the 
new  curate,  whose  influence  over  her  was  a  steadily 
growing  one;  but  it  was  none  the  less  sincere,  and 
the  girl  had  stuck  to  it  bravely,  refusing  many 
pleasures  in  order  to  wait  upon  her  mother,  and 
consoling  herself  for  lost  dances  and  flirtations  by 
the  thought  that  Olive  would  come  home  and  be 
pleased  that  she  had  ''  been  so  good."  Now  there 
had  come  home,  not  Olive,  but  a  hollow-cheeked 
and  hard-eyed  ghost;  and  little  Jenny,  recognizing 
mournfully  that  it  seemed  to  make  no  difference 
whether  one  was  good  or  not,  stared  through  a  mist 
of  unintelligible  horror  at  the  first  human  tragedy 
that  had  crossed  her  path. 

Disappointment  and  perplexity  drew  her  and  the 
mother  nearer  together  than  they  had  ever  been 
before,  and  further  away  from  Olive.  In  Mrs. 
Latham's  sheltered  life  there  was  no  room  for  ship- 
wrecks.   Household  cares  and  worries  were  familiar 


OLIVE    LATHAM  215 

to  her;  ill-health  and  mild  religious  doubts  she  had 
borne  in  patience  for  eighteen  years;  and  that  was 
all.  Since  her  one  real  sorrow,  the  death  of  the  boy, 
her  life  had  flowed  through  quiet  places,  a  melan- 
choly, placid  stream  of  little  griefs  and  little  duties, 
regular,  inevitable  as  the  seasons.  At  first  merely 
resigned,  she  had  ended  by  growing  accustomed  to 
her  narrow  existence.  Now  the  outer  darkness  had 
come  into  this  world  of  gray  and  tempered  shadow ; 
a  darkness  that  might  be  felt.  Within  a  month  of 
Olive's  return  the  mother  had  begun  to  watch  her 
furtively,  askance,  and  to  cling  unconsciously  to  the 
younger  daughter,  as  though  this  one  only  were  her 
flesh  and  blood  and  that  an  alien. 

Yet  there  was  no  want  of  tenderness  on  either  her 
part  or  Jenny's.  Had  the  girl  come  back  to  them 
with  any  lesser  trouble,  such  as  might  be  talked  of, 
wept  over,  consoled,  they  would  have  grieved  for  her 
sorrow  as  if  it  had  been  their  own,  and  have  loved 
her  the  better  because  of  their  grief.  But  Olive  came 
back  with  shut  lips  and  held  her  peace. 

As  for  the  father,  he  also  held  his  peace.  Of  all 
the  household,  he  alone  understood,  in  a  dim, 
groping  way,  a  very  little.  What  the  thing  could 
be  that  had  changed  the  daughter  he  had  been  so 
proud  of  into  this  haggard  stranger,  he  could  not 
even  dimly  guess;   but  the  hunted  look  in  her  eyes 


216  OLIVE    LATHAM 

warned  him  to  let  her  alone,  to  ask  no  questions,  to 
offer  no  sympathy;  and  his  reticence  won  for  him 
in  time  a  certain  negative  reward.  Though  the  hope 
he  clung  to,  that  some  day  she  would  give  him  her 
voluntary  confidence,  gradually  faded  out,  still,  he 
had  gained  something:  she  avoided  him  less  than 
she  did  the  others.  "  She  seems  not  to  shrink  quite 
so  much  from  me  as  from  her  mother  and  sister,"  he 
told  the  family  doctor  with  a  piteous  hesitation  in 
affirming  even  this;  "  but  it  may  be  only  that,  as  I 
don't  worry  her,  she  forgets  my  existence." 

Perhaps  if  all  the  persons  who  surrounded  her  had 
allowed  her  to  forget  their  existence,  she  would  not 
have  become  so  frightened  and  confused.  The  half- 
reproachful,  half-scared  expression  of  Jenny's  pretty 
eyes;  the  mother's  anxious  face  and  eager,  shy 
caresses;  the  air  of  unspoken  sympathy  with  which 
Dick  hovered  about ;  the  pitying  looks  of  the  village 
folk;  all  alike  seemed  to  her  a  cruel  and  harassing 
importunity.  "  Why  can't  they  let  me  alone?"  she 
would  whisper  to  herself,  panting  and  fierce  under 
the  goad  of  some  kindly-meant  expression  of  con- 
cern ;  "  oh,  why  can't  they  let  me  alone  ?" 

Her  sensibility  seemed  to  have  become  a  thing 
merely  of  the  surface.  While  the  tips  of  her  nerves 
responded  with  unendurable  keenness  of  distress  to 
the    lightest    external    touch,    all    underneath    was 


OLIVE    LATHAM  217 

callous  and  indifferent.  A  death  in  her  family  would 
scarcely  have  troubled  her ;  a  tactless  word  drove  her 
to  the  verge  of  desperation.  The  same  dispropor- 
tionate sensitiveness  in  trifles  tormented  her  physi- 
cally. Once  when  her  mother,  passing  the  sofa 
where  she  now  spent  most  of  her  time,  stooped  down 
to  put  a  shawl  about  her,  the  girl  cried  out  sharply, 
as  if  hurt.  She  lifted  her  arm,  and  the  loose  sleeve 
she  wore  fell  back,  showing  where  the  soft  touch  of 
her  mother's  fingers  had  left  upon  the  skin  a  red 
mark,  like  a  burn. 

One  afternoon  in  May  Mr.  Latham,  coming  home 
from  business,  found  his  wife  waiting  for  him  in  the 
porch. 

"  Come  in  softly,  Alfred,"  she  said.  *'  Olive  is  on 
the  drawing-room  sofa;  I've  just  got  her  off  to 
sleep.    We  have  had  an  awful  day  with  her." 

"  Another  headache  ?" 

Olive  was  always  late  in  the  mornings  now,  and  he 
had  not  seen  her  before  leaving  home. 

"  Yes,  a  terrible  one.  I  found  her  pacing  up  and 
down  her  room  this  morning,  almost  light-headed 
with  it.    I  sent  for  Dr.  Morton." 

"Has  he  been?" 

"  Yes.  He  gave  her  something  to  stop  it  for  the 
moment,  but  he  says  he  can't  really  do  anything. 
He  only  repeats  what  the  Harley  Street  man  said: 


218  OLIVE    LATHAM 

that  she's  brooding  over  something,  and  would  get 
better  if  she  could  bring  herself  to  speak  of  it. 
Alfred,  can't  you  get  her  to  tell  you?  If  we  could 
only  know  ..." 

"  It's  no  use  our  discussing  that  again,  Mary ;  we 
daren't  worry  her  with  cross-examinations  now. 
Some  day,  perhaps,  she'll  tell  us." 

'^  She  won't;  she'll  die.  Come  in  and  look  at  her; 
she's  fast  asleep.  I  didn't  realize  till  to-day  how  thin 
she  has  grown." 

He  entered  the  room  in  felt  slippers,  and  stooped 
over  her,  holding  his  breath.  Her  dressing-gown 
had  fallen  open,  showing  the  wasted  throat  and 
wrists.  Her  face,  as  she  slept,  had  the  pinched 
features  of  a  corpse.  He  turned  away  softly,  and 
walked  to  the  window. 

"  Good  God !"  he  said  under  his  breath. 

His  wife  came  and  stood  beside  him,  slipping  a 
hand  into  his. 

"  Alfred,  she'll  die. 

He  made  no  answer. 

"  Look !"  she  whispered.  "  The  telegraph  boy ; 
he'll  wake  her!" 

Mr.  Latham  opened  the  window. 

"  Don't  knock.     Boy  .  .  ." 

But  the  boy  had  not  heard;  he  gave  a  sharp 
double  knock  at  the  front-door,  and  Olive  sprang 


OLIVE    LATHAM  219 

from  her  sofa  with  a  scream  that  pealed  through  the 
house. 

"  Ah,  gendarmes  .  .  .  !'* 

Then  she  awoke  to  full  consciousness,  and  saw  her 
father  and  mother.  No  explanation  was  asked  or 
offered ;  she  went  to  her  room  without  a  word,  and 
they  stood  where  she  had  left  them,  avoiding  one 
another's  eyes. 

The  next  day  Mrs.  Latham  found  her  alone, 
lying  on  her  deck-chair  on  the  lawn;  and,  coming 
up  behind  her  softly,  put  both  arms  about  her 
neck. 

"  Don't,  mother,"  the  girl  said,  shrinking  from  the 
caress ;  '^  you  hurt  me." 

Mrs.  Latham  drew  her  arms  away;  she  had 
learned  to  accept  as  a  mysterious  fact  this  unnatural 
sensitiveness  to  touch.  Olive's  hand  was  lying  on 
the  arm  of  the  chair ;  and  the  mother  stood  watching 
how  the  tiny  hairs  along  the  wrist  would  rise  up 
suddenly  and  stand  erect  as  if  with  cold  or  fear, 
then  lie  flat  for  a  moment  and  rise  again. 

"Olive,  child,"  she  said  at  last;  "can't  you  tell 
me  what  is  wrong  with  you  ?" 

"  I  have  told  you,  mother ;  there's  nothing.  I'm 
tired  and  not  very  well,  that  is  all." 

Mrs.  Latham  looked  down  at  the  daisies. 

"  You  see,  dear,  we  .  .  .  couldn't  help  hearing 


220  OLIVE    LATHAM 

what  you  said  yesterday  when  the  boy  waked 
you  .  .  :' 

Olive's  mouth  set  in  an  ominous  line. 

"  I  said  nothing-." 

"  Dear  child,  I  don't  want  to  force  your  confi- 
dence. But  try  to  realize  what  your  father  and  I 
must  feel,  hearing  such  a  word  as  that  and  nothing 
more.    If  you  could  only  tell  us  .  .  ." 

There  she  broke  off.  Olive  had  risen  from  her 
deck-chair,  and  now  stood  looking  at  her,  silent,  with 
compressed  lips. 

"  So  you  watch  to  see  if  I  talk  in  my  sleep  ?  I'm 
glad  you  have  told  me,  anyway.  If  I'm  living  among 
spies,  it's  as  well  to  know  it." 

"  Olive !"  Mrs.  Latham  gasped.  In  the  whole  of 
her  life  such  words  had  never  been  said  to  her  till 
now,  when  she  heard  them  from  her  own  child. 
Olive,  with  a  curious  glitter  in  her  eyes,  stood  look- 
ing at  her  for  a  moment,  then  went  slowly  into  the 
house.  When  Mr.  Latham  came  home,  he  found  his 
wife  sobbing  inconsolably,  and  drew  the  story  from 
her  bit  by  bit.  His  face  grew  white  as  he  listened; 
brutality  of  this  kind  was  so  foreign  to  Olive's  nature 
as  to  give  a  definite  shape  to  the  vague  fears  that 
tormented  him. 

"  Where  is  she?"  he  asked. 

"  In  her  own  room.    Alfred,  don't  speak  about  it 


OLIVE    LATHAM  221 

to  her.  It  was  my  own  fault;  you  had  warned  me 
not  to  ask  her  questions." 

Without  answering,  he  went  upstairs  and  knocked 
at  OHve's  door.  He  found  her  sitting  by  the  win- 
dow, as  usually,  alone.  She  never  even  looked  up  to 
see  who  had  entered. 

"  Is  your  head  bad  again,  my  dear?" 

"  No." 

"  Did  you  sleep  last  night  ?" 

"  Not  worse  than  other  nights." 

"  I  want  to  speak  to  you  for  a  minute  if  you  feel 
well  enough." 

"Yes?" 

She  had  still  not  moved.  He  sat  down  beside  her 
and  took  her  hand ;  but  she  drew  it  away,  remaining 
otherwise  quite  passive.  Her  fingers  slid  through  his 
like  little  sticks  of  ice. 

''  I  have  just  found  your  mother  in  tears,"  he 
began.  ''  She  has  been  very  much  upset  by  her  talk 
with  you  this  afternoon.  She  blames  herself  for 
irritating  you ;  but  .  .  .  she  is  your  mother,  Olive, 
and,  you  know,  she  is  not  strong." 

Olive  sat  looking  down  at  the  tightly-clenched, 
cold  hands  in  her  lap,  and  made  no  sign. 

"  Don't  you  think,"  he  ventured  at  last,  ''  that  you 
are  just  a  bit  .  .  .  cruel?  God  knows  I  don't  want 
to  pry  into  your  secrets,  child ;  but  .  .  ." 


222  OLIVE    LATHAM 

"  But  you  don't  understand  how  I  can  be  such  a 
brute  as  to  make  mother  cry  ?  Nor  do  I.  I  suppose 
the  glands  that  secrete  daughterly  feelings  have  got 
dried  up  in  me,  or  their  tissues  have  degenerated,  or 
something.  What's  the  use  of  being  dishonest  about 
it  and  pretending  to  care  for  you  all  when  I  can't 
care  a  bit?  I  behaved  abominably  to  mother,  of 
course;   but  I'd  let  her  alone  if  she'd  let  me  alone." 

"  Isn't  that  a  hard  thing  to  ask  of  people  who  care 
about  you,  whether  you  care  for  them  or  not,  when 
they  see  you  ridden  by  nightmares  like  this?  Is 
there  nothing  I  can  do  to  help  you  against  this  fear  ? 
I  would  try  to  understand." 

Olive  slowly  rose  and  set  her  back  against  the 
wall.  She  looked,  her  father  thought  with  a  pang 
of  remorse,  like  a  thing  chivied  from  its  hiding-place 
and  turning  helplessly  at  bay. 

"  Father,"  she  said ;  "  I  came  back  here  because 
I  had  nowhere  else  to  go.  Won't  you  let  me  stay 
and  rest  a  little  while?  I  shan't  trouble  you  long. 
I  haven't  asked  very  much  of  you  or  mother  in  my 
life,  have  I?  But  if  you  ask  me  questions  I  shall 
have  to  go  away." 

"Togo  .  .  .  away?    What,  back  there ?" 

''  Anywhere ;  to  the  first  ditch,  if  I  can't  get 
further,  and  starve  there,  rather  than  be  driven  mad 
with  questions.     Oh,  why  can't  you  leave  me  alone, 


OLIVE    LATHAM  223 

all  of  you  ?  Whichever  way  I  turn,  there  are  people 
asking  questions,  always  asking  questions.  Can't 
you  see  it  chokes  me  ?    I  can't  .  .  .  breathe  .  .  ." 

Her  voice  broke  off  in  a  hoarse,  struggling  cry. 
She  put  up  both  hands  and  plucked  at  her  collar. 
When,  at  her  father's  loud  and  frightened  call,  the 
women  of  the  household  came  running  to  the  room, 
they  found  her  speechless,  gasping  like  a  person 
choking  to  death.  None  of  them  knew  how  to  cope 
with  a  paroxysm  so  violent ;  but  very  soon  the  spas- 
modic contraction  of  the  throat  relaxed,  and  the 
attack  passed  over,  leaving  her  utterly  exhausted. 
Then  she  began  to  sob  from  sheer  weakness,  and, 
clinging  to  her  father's  hand,  repeated,  over  and  over 
again :  ''  Promise  you  won't  ask  me  questions !  Tell 
them  never  to  ask  me  questions !" 

He  kissed  her,  sighing,  and  went  away.  He  had 
promised,  for  he  had  no  choice;  but  a  daughter  of 
whom  questions  must  never  be  asked  seemed  to  him 
a  sorry  comfort  to  a  man's  old  age. 


CHAPTER    II 

It  was  not  till  after  midsummer  that  Olive  began 
to  realize  what  hung  over  her.  The  vague  terrors 
which  had  pursued  her  all  the  spring  had  grown  more 
definite,  the  shadows  were  blacker,  the  nightmares 
more  persistent;  the  laughing  images,  at  first  scat- 
tered and  fragmentary,  now  passed  before  her  shut, 
half-dreaming  eyes  in  long  processions,  forming, 
glowing,  fading  rhythmically,  like  magic-lantern  pic- 
tures on  a  moving  slide ;  but,  so  far,  that  was  all. 

The  first  actual  waking  hallucination  sprang  upon 
her  unawares  one  hot  afternoon  in  July.  She  was 
alone,  lying  on  her  couch  at  the  corner  of  the  lawn, 
within  the  shadow  of  the  big  chestnut-tree.  Flicker- 
ing gleams  of  sunshine  played  across  her  face  and 
dress;  at  two  paces  from  her  a  flowering  lavender- 
bush  stood  in  a  blaze  of  light.  For  some  time  she 
lay  with  closed  eyes,  listening  to  the  humming  of 
bees;  then,  raising  herself  on  one  arm,  she  looked 
out  across  the  garden.  It  was  a  flaming  mass  of 
colour.  On  the  house-porch  yellow  and  crimson 
roses  glowed  against  a  background  of  jasmine;  blue 
larkspur,  red  carnations,  marigolds,  and  day-lilies 
flared  in  the  sunny  border;  from  the  trellis  arches 
224 


OLIVE    LATHAM  225 

over  the  path  swung  trails  of  purple  clematis.  Close 
to  her  the  clipped  edge  of  the  lawn  shone,  vivid 
green,  below  the  gray  leaves  of  the  lavender. 

Then  the  colours  and  the  lights  were  gone.  Some- 
where a  creature — herself,  yet  not  all  of  herself — 
moved  in  a  shadowy  room,  not  round,  but  many- 
sided  ;  and  all  the  panels  of  the  walls  were  pictures. 
Another  self,  unfriendly  to  the  first  one,  looked  on  as 
at  a  show.  It  saw  the  first,  the  real  self,  turn  towards 
one  of  the  picture-walls,  and  find  the  picture  gone 
and  a  black  square  where  it  had  been,  as  though  a 
veil  had  been  dropped  over  the  panel.  A  moment 
later  another  picture  had  vanished,  then  still  another, 
till  black  squares  were  everywhere.  At  that,  fear 
came  upon  the  defenceless  creature,  and  it  flung 
itself  with  outstretched  hands  against  the  nearest  of 
the  black  squares.  But  the  hands  passed  through, 
touching  nothing,  into  empty  space. 

Then  the  creature  fixed  its  eyes  upon  one  panel : 
a  landscape,  with  grass  and  trees  and  a  winding 
stream;  and  watched  it  with  a  fierce  attention, 
trying  not  to  see  the  vanishing  walls,  the  spreading 
blackness  all  around ;  till  at  one  corner  of  the  picture 
there  came  a  small  black  spot,  then  a  wide  rent 
swiftly  lengthened ;  and,  in  the  passing  of  an  instant, 
trees  and  grass  and  water  all  had  shrivelled  up  and 
gone,  and  the  outer  darkness  looked  in,  as  a  wolf 

15 


226  OLIVE    LATHAM 

looks,  with  hungry  eyes.  Then,  and  only  then,  the 
wretched  creature  understood  that  all  its  familiar 
surroundings,  all  its  joys,  its  loves,  its  gods,  were 
but  painted  films,  that  had  been  stretched  between  it 
and  the  darkness. 

Meanwhile  the  other  self,  quiescent,  remained  a 
careless  onlooker.  It  saw  the  creature  standing, 
forlorn,  upon  the  bit  of  floor  that  remained  a  vanish- 
ing island  in  a  limitless  black  sea.  It  saw  that  last 
foothold  shrivel  and  disappear,  and  the  creature 
plunged  and  sinking  in  billows  of  darkness  that 
swept  over  its  head  and  drowned  its  desperate 
cries.  It  saw,  and  laughed,  and  would  not  reach 
a  hand  to  help,  for  there  was  no  pity  in  its  withered 
heart. 

Struggling,  fighting,  shrieking  for  help  that  never 
came,  the  creature  tossed  and  glided,  floated  and 
sank ;  and  the  black  waves  tumbled  around  it,  slipped 
through  its  fingers,  pressed  upon  its  eyes.  Shapes 
fled  past  through  empty  space,  luminous  and  distant, 
glittering  and  close;  and  the  creature  stretched  out 
hands  to  them,  imploring,  clung  and  moaned  against 
their  feet;  but  none  would  help.  Sometimes, 
struggling  madly  towards  the  light  that  shone  from 
them,  it  would  seize  and  try  to  hold  them  fast,  but 
either  they  were  smooth  and  cold,  and  slid  away 
from  its  weak  fingers,  or  they  were  merely  painted 


OLIVE    LATHAM  227 

films,  that  burst  and  shrivelled  at  its  touch.  So  it 
would  sink  down  and  down,  while  black  waves  closed 
again  above  its  head. 

Then  within  its  own  body  came  a  black  spot, 
a  hidden  point  of  emptiness  that  grew  and  always 
grew.  For  this  was  the  inner  darkness;  and  its 
desire  was  to  tear  a  way  for  itself  to  the  outer  dark- 
ness and  be  one  with  it;  to  destroy  and  annihilate 
utterly  the  creature  that  had  believed  itself  alive, 
and  that,  like  all  things  in  earth  or  heaven,  was  but 
a  painted  film.  ,  .  . 

j|s  5|s  ^  5j;  :j« 

The  first  thing  which  came  back  was  the  bright 
green  of  the  clipped  lawn  edge;  then  in  a  moment 
the  rainbow  colours  of  the  flowering  garden  were  all 
around  her,  and  bees  were  humming  in  the  lavender. 
She  lay  still  and  dared  not  move. 

Her  father's  pony-trap  came  up  the  drive.  He 
leaned  sideways  as  he  passed  the  tree,  and  flung  a 
trail  of  wild  honeysuckle  into  her  lap. 

"  A  treasure  for  you !" 

She  put  out  a  hand  to  take  the  coral-tipped 
trumpets  that  had  fallen  against  her  knee,  then  drew 
it  back  suddenly  without  touching  them.  If  they 
were  not  real  flowers  ...  if  they  were  only  a 
painted  film  .  .  . 

She  pressed  cold  hands  over  her  eyes  to  shut  out 


228  OLIVE    LATHAM 

the  sight  of  the  honeysuckle.     How  could  she  know 
it  would  not  shrivel  at  her  touch  ? 

She  must  have  lain  so  for  a  long  time ;  when  her 
mother's  voice  roused  her  the  shadow  of  the  tree  had 
moved,  and  the  sunlight  was  blazing  on  her  bare 
head. 

"  My  darling,  you'll  get  another  headache  lying  in 
this  hot  sun.    Why,  you're  shivering,  child !" 

*'  It's  .  .  .  cold,"  she  answered  faintly,  shud- 
dering. 

"  Cold,  this  weather  ?  Why,  your  hands  are  like 
ice  and  all  wet !    You  had  better  come  in." 

The  girl  obeyed  in  silence.  She  shuddered  again 
when  her  mother  kissed  her  forehead.  What  has  a 
painted  film  to  do  with  kissing? 

***** 

The  fear  of  madness  came  upon  her  for  the  first 
time  as  she  lay  awake  that  night.  She  had  fallen 
asleep  on  lying  down,  and  had  started  up  screaming 
at  the  old  cry :  ''  Water !  water !  water !"  This  time 
the  dream  had  been  so  vivid  that  when  she  woke  the 
sound  seemed  close  against  her  ear. 

She  pushed  the  hair  back  from  her  forehead.  It 
was  wet  and  matted,  and  her  hands  shook  as  she 
lifted  them.  One  could  never  get  used  to  these 
things,  it  seemed ;  the  moment  of  waking  after  each 
fresh  nightmare  was  as  fearful  now  as  at  the  first. 


OLIVE    LATHAM  229 

Then  she  remembered  the  painted  films.  But 
they  had  come  when  she  was  awake,  in  full  pos- 
session of  her  senses,  in  clear  daylight.  The  cry  for 
water  was  only  in  her  sleep.  If  that,  too,  were  to 
invade  her  waking  mind  .  .  . 

She  understood  suddenly.  If  that  happened,  she 
would  know  it  for  a  sign  of  coming  madness. 

Day  after  day,  night  after  night,  she  waited  and 
listened.  Sometimes,  as  she  lay  awake,  the  throbbing 
of  her  pulses,  the  rise  and  fall  of  her  breathing, 
would  beat  out  a  stealthy  rhythm :  ''  Water !  water ! 
water !"     But  as  a  sound  she  heard  it  only  in  sleep. 

But  the  other  dread  was  always  closer  upon  her. 
By  September  her  life  had  become  so  haunted  that 
she  dared  not  touch  familiar  things  for  fear  of 
painted  films.  The  garden  was  a  place  of  horror ;  its 
colours  and  its  lights  were  all  a  sham.  In  the  house 
the  staircase  terrified  her ;  what  if  it  should  crumble 
into  dust  when  she  set  her  foot  upon  it?  Worst 
of  all  were  the  hollow  shapes  called  father,  mother, 
sister,  that  moved  and  talked  as  if  they  were  alive, 
and  kissed  her  with  lips  already  shrivelling  away. 

During  the  autumn  she  grew  a  little  less  weak  and 
emaciated  in  body ;  and  at  the  beginning  of  winter  a 
chance  incident  half  roused  her  mind,  for  a  moment, 
from  its  long  nightmare.  A  child  in  the  village 
died;    and  the  mother,  formerly  a  servant  in  the 


230  OLIVE    LATHAM 

Latham  household,  confided  to  Dick  Grey  that  she 
had  set  her  heart  upon  "  her  young  ladies"  coming 
to  see  the  body. 

Jenny,  when  he  asked  her  to  go  with  him  to  the 
place,  consented  at  once,  though  with  a  little  grimace. 
She  hated  corpses,  and  had  not  yet  succeeded  in 
learning  to  like  cottagers;  but  she  honestly  wished 
to  afford  the  poor  woman  any  comfort  in  her  power, 
especially  if  her  doing  so  would  please  Dick. 

"  And  you?"  he  asked,  turning  wistfully  to  Olive. 

*'  If  you  like,"  she  answered,  without  raising  her 
head.    "  I  don't  care." 

His  eyes  dropped.  He  remembered  the  old  Olive 
who  would  have  needed  no  asking ;  the  mothers  who 
had  clung  to  her ;  the  children  whom  she  had  made 
ready  for  their  coffins  with  such  strong  and  gentle 
hands. 

When  he  and  the  two  girls  approached  the  bed 
the  mother  stooped  down  and  drew  the  sheet  back 
from  the  face.  She  pointed  out  to  them  tearfully 
the  elaborate  frilled  nightgown ;  in  the  midst  of  her 
grief  it  consoled  her  to  feel  that  the  dead  baby  had 
"  everything  of  the  best,  like  any  lady's  child." 
"  We'll  have  to  pinch  for  it,"  she  said,  turning  to 
the  coffin  with  the  shiny  handles  and  satin  lining; 
"  but  we  wouldn't  let  her  be  buried  in  one  of  those 
cheap  things,  not  if  it  was  ever  so." 


OLIVE    LATHAM  231 

Dick  softly  praised  the  coffin  and  the  spotless  bed- 
clothes, and  Jenny,  conquering  her  physical  repug- 
nance, laid  her  mother's  white  chrysanthemums  on 
the  child's  breast  with  a  hurried  murmur  of  pious 
commonplaces.  But  the  bereaved  woman,  though 
she  said :  "  Yes,  Miss  Jenny,"  and :  "  Thank  you, 
sir,"  between  her  sobs,  turned  away  from  the  com- 
forters to  look  at  Olive's  haunted  eyes.  "  Miss 
Olive,  my  dear,"  she  said  as  she  opened  the  door; 
"  youVe  seen  trouble  too,  anybody  can  tell  that  by 
your  face;  you  can  feel  for  me.  Oh," — with  another 
burst  of  tears — '*  I  never  thought  I  should  bury  her !" 

Olive  looked  up,  trying,  in  a  serious,  puzzled  way, 
to  understand. 

"After  all,"  she  said;  "it  doesn't  matter  very 
much ;  she's  quite  dead.  So  long  as  people  are  not 
buried  before  they  die  .  .  ." 

She  broke  off,  suddenly  realizing  that  she  was 
saying  something  monstrous  and  impossible,  and 
that  the  woman  had  dropped  the  apron  from  her 
eyes  and  was  staring  in  horrified  amazement. 

"  Olive !"  Jenny  gasped  when  they  left  the  house. 
"  How  can  you  be  so  heartless !" 

"  I  can't  help  it  if  I  was  made  that  way,"  she 
answered.  "  There's  something  so  grotesque  about 
it  all." 

"About  what?" 


232  OLIVE    LATHAM 

"  I  don't  know ;  corpses,  and  condolences,  and 
frilled  nightgowns.  People  cry  because  someone 
they  cared  about  is  dead,  and  then  you  have  to 
sympathize.  And  after  all,  what  does  it  matter? 
The  child  is  not  more  dead  than  other  people.  Most 
of  us  are  dead,  only  we  take  such  a  long  time  to  find 
it  out." 

Jenny  opened  her  lips  to  speak,  but  Dick,  who  had 
lingered  for  a  moment  in  the  cottage,  came  up 
quickly  behind  them  and  stopped  her  with  a  gesture. 

"  Take  my  arm,  Olive,"  he  said. 

They  had  only  a  little  way  to  walk ;  but,  entering 
the  garden  drive,  he  felt  Olive's  weight  heavy  against 
him.  Her  face  was  dead-white  when  they  reached 
the  house. 

"  Olive !"  Jenny  cried,  catching  a  glimpse  of  her 
sister's  profile;  "  my  dear,  what  is  the  matter?" 

"  Nothing."  Olive  had  dropped  Dick's  arm  at  the 
foot  of  the  stairs.    Jenny  ran  to  her,  terrified. 

"  But  you're  ill ;  you  look  awful !  Mr.  Grey  .  .  ." 

Olive  turned  slowly  and  faced  them,  clinging  to 
the  banister,  in  her  tense  attitude  of  a  creature 
attacked. 

"  Can't  you  let  me  alone  ?  There's  nothing  the 
matter  with  me ;  there's  never  anything  the  matter ; 
only  I'm  tired.    Don't  you  see?    I'm  tired." 

She  turned  and  went  upstairs. 


OLIVE    LATHAM  233 

That  night  she  paced  her  room  and  raged  against 
gods  and  men.  The  sight  of  the  dead  child  had 
forced  on  her  a  hateful  consciousness  that  she  her- 
self was  living  and  condemned  to  live,  cursed  with 
steel  nerves  that  would  not  break  for  any  wrenching. 
Yet  other  people  managed  to  die  easily  enough,  or 
to  forget.  Everything  came  to  them  easily :  life  and 
death,  tears  and  oblivion;  everything,  even  sleep. 
No  doubt  the  childless  mother  was  sleeping  soundly 
now  for  all  her  swollen  eyelids.  Next  spring  there 
would  be  a  new  baby,  and  new  clothes  to  make  for 
it,  with  plentiful  consolation  of  tucks  and  frills,  and 
the  dead  child  would  be  forgotten. 

Some  buried  ghost  of  the  Olive  that  Vladimir  had 
known  struggled  up  for  a  moment  to  the  surface, 
gravely  compassionate,  full  of  swift  tenderness  for 
any  living  thing  that  grieved.  Her  eyes  grew  sud- 
denly dim  at  the  thought  of  the  woman's  tear-stained 
face. 

Then  the  other  self  came  back,  and  she  threw  up 
her  head  and  laughed.  Ah,  the  doleful  faces  of  these 
lucky  folk  that  mourn  for  their  dead,  their  comfort- 
able, pampered  dead!  They  will  weep,  of  course, 
bitterly  for  a  day  or  two,  mildly  for  a  week;  then 
they  will  go  to  church  in  new  crape  finery,  and  say 
their  prayers,  and  dry  their  eyes,  and  think  they 
know  what  hell  is. 


234  OLIVE    LATHAM 

Oh,  the  horror  of  this  double  consciousness :  the 
self  that  feels,  the  other  self  that  looks  on  and 
laughs!  .  .  . 

She  raised  both  hands  and  clasped  them  above  her 
head.  "  I  shall  go  mad !"  she  cried  aloud.  "  Karol, 
I  am  going  mad !" 

Karol  .  .  .  yes,  Karol  was  not  among  the  smug, 
satisfied  people  that  weep  for  their  dead.  But  Karol, 
too,  might  be  a  painted  film. 

Her  hands  fell  slowly.  She  crept  back  to  her  cold 
bed  and  lay  down  in  the  dark. 

:jj  :}c  ^  jft  5|{ 

Before  Christmas  the  first  snow  fell;  and  her 
father  found  her  in  the  garden  late  at  night,  bare- 
footed, walking  in  her  sleep,  with  white  flakes  pow- 
dering her  loose,  uncovered  hair.  He  tried  to  get 
her  back  to  bed  without  waking  her ;  but  at  his  touch 
she  flung  up  her  hands  with  a  horrible  cry : 

"  Ah !  ah !   there's  snow  on  me — snow !" 

She  began  beating  it  off  her  face  and  neck  with 
both  hands,  frantically. 

"  Olive !"  Mrs.  Latham  cried,  running  out  at  the 
sound ;  and  the  girl  fled  to  her  and  cowered,  shiver- 
ing, against  her  breast.  It  was  the  first  time  since 
her  return  that  her  mother's  caresses  met  with  any 
response ;  and  now  it  was  only  for  an  instant.  Still 
trembling,   she    drew  herself  away  and  looked  at 


OLIVE    LATHAM  235 

them  with  the  hard  eyes  that  they  had  learned  to 
dread. 

"  It's  nothing,  thanks.  I  had  a  nightmare ;  it  was 
the  .  .  .  snow." 

***** 

For  all  the  nightmares,  her  bodily  strength  was 
returning.  By  February  she  could  take  long  walks 
without  fatigue,  and  a  restless  energy  began  to 
replace  the  deadly  lassitude  of  last  year.  Most  of 
her  time  was  now  spent  in  wandering  alone  about 
the  leafless  woods.  Idleness  was  so  unnatural  to  her 
that  the  first  glimmer  of  returning  health  brought 
with  it  a  craving  to  get  away  out  of  this  sleepy  place, 
from  among  these  leisurely  folk.  Yet  the  thought  of 
going  back  to  her  work  in  London,  when  it  crossed 
her  mind,  sickened  her  with  horror. 

She  had  done  with  nursing,  she  told  herself  day 
after  day,  tramping  the  wet,  cold  wood-paths.  Her 
professional  life  had  ended  when  she  followed  the 
blue  uniforms  down  the  stairs.  It  had  not  been  her 
fault,  but  the  thing  had  happened;  nothing  could 
alter  that.  She,  a  nurse  had  failed  to  protect  from 
actual  bodily  violence  the  patient  entrusted  to  her 
care;  had  failed  even  to  die  defending  him.  Had 
she  suffered  and  outlived  a  sexual  outrage,  it  would 
not  have  been  more  utterly  the  end  of  all  things.  A 
hundred  times  she  went  back  in  her  memory  over  all 


236  OLIVE    LATHAM 

the  details,  tormenting  herself  with  vain  specula- 
tions. Was  there  anything  she  could  have  done? 
What  would  have  happened  if  she  had  not  submitted, 
if  she  had  thrown  the  lighted  lamp  in  the  officer's 
face?  She  knew  that  could  have  ended  in  nothing 
but  in  exposing  the  dying  man  to  worse  brutalities ; 
but  would  it  not  have  been  better  so  ?  Perhaps  then 
he  might  have  died  more  quickly,  might  not  have  felt 
the  cold  so  long. 

As  the  winter  passed  into  spring  and  increasing 
bodily  strength  brought  with  it  a  gradual  awakening 
of  the  stunned  mind,  she  began  at  last  to  realize  how 
completely  her  life  was  wrecked.  Nothing  was  left 
to  her  but  a  hole  in  a  swamp  and  the  ever-recurring 
dread  of  painted  films. 

Very  early  one  April  morning,  after  a  night  of 
horror  that  drove  her  from  her  haunted  room  to 
wander  aimlessly  about  the  fields,  she  came  upon 
Dick  Grey,  whistling  cheerfully  in  the  footpath  lead- 
ing up  from  the  low  marsh  lands.  She  turned  back 
to  avoid  meeting  him;  but  he  had  seen  her,  and, 
quickening  his  pace,  caught  her  up  beside  a  flowering 
cherry-tree.  Clean-limbed  and  wholesome  in  his 
threadbare  coat,  he  seemed  to  carry  about  with  him 
an  atmosphere  of  cold  baths  and  open-air  sports  and 
loving  interest  in  humankind.  His  boots  were  cov- 
ered with  the  heavy  mud  of  the  marshes ;  and  as  he 


OLIVE    LATHAM  237 

ran  up  to  her,  with  bright  eyes  shining  under  his 
shabby  hat,  an  empty  coffee-can  jingled  in  his  hand. 

"  Why,  Olive,  it's  like  old  times  to  see  you  about 
so  early.    Isn't  it  a  glorious  morning?" 

"  I  suppose  so,"  she  answered,  glancing  round  at 
the  dewy  landscape. 

His  face  changed  quickly. 

"  Another  bad  night  ?    Oh,  I'm  so  sorry,  dear !" 

The  line  of  her  mouth  grew  straight.  She  had  a 
nervous  dread  of  any  softened  mood  in  her  friends 
or  relatives;  it  always  brought  nearer  the  odious 
possibility  of  someone  asking  questions.  She 
plunged  hastily  into  small-talk. 

''  Have  you  been  down  in  Gilford  Hollow?  Your 
boots  look  like  it." 

"  Yes,  getting  old  Susan  Mead  her  breakfast. 
She's  laid  up  with  rheumatism,  and  no  one  else  will 
do  it  for  her,  because  she's  supposed  to  be  a  disrepu- 
table character.  The  poor  soul  tells  me  every  morn- 
ing she  '  don't  believe  in  parsons,  and  don't  want 
charity  neither.'  Very  human,  isn't  it?  I  assured 
her  to-day  I  wasn't  keen  on  parsons  myself ;  and  as 
for  charity,  if  she  likes  hot  coffee,  I  like  an  early 
walk.     Wasn't  the   sunrise   a   stunner   this   morn- 

ing?" 

A  dim  little  smile  flickered  round  Olive's  mouth. 
"  What's  the  joke?"  he  asked  at  once. 


238  OLIVE    LATHAM 

"  I  was  only  wondering  what  the  Rector  would 
say  if  he  heard  you  talk  that  way  to  Susan." 

Dick  burst  out  laughing. 

"  Good  old  Wickham !  I  believe  he  asks  in  his 
prayers  every  night  what  he's  done  to  be  afflicted 
with  a  Socialist  curate.  It  is  jolly  hard  luck  for  him, 
poor  old  buffer !" 

He  broke  off  and  began  kicking  a  tuft  of  grass. 

"  Look  here,  Olive :  I've  been  wanting  to  talk  to 
you  for  a  long  time,  only  I've  just  funked  it.  I  .  .  ." 

He  came  to  another  stop.  Olive  stood  quite  still, 
hard-eyed,  with  compressed  lips. 

'*  You  know,  I've  never  asked  you  any  questions," 
he  went  on  hurriedly;  ''  after  what  you  told  me  that 
day  in  the  train;  and,  of  course,  I'm  not  going  to 
tell  you  how  .  .  .  sorry  I  am,  and  all  that.  But 
it's  .  .  .  it's  frightful  to  see  anyone  burnt  up  like 
this  in  one  year.  Perhaps  you  may  say,  what  is  it 
tome?  .  .  ." 

Her  eyes  flashed. 

"  Yes,  I  do  say,  what  is  it  to  you  ?" 

''Well,  it's  just  this  to  me:  that  I've  loved  you 
pretty  faithfully  for  some  years,  and  .  .  .  not 
bothered  you  overmuch  about  it;  and  I  wish  to 
God  you  wouldn't  shut  yourself  away  from  all  the 
people  that  care  for  you,  even  if  there  isn't  anything 
we  can  do  to  help  you.    Look  here,  never  mind  about 


OLIVE    LATHAM  239 

me — Fm  an  ass,  of  course,  and  anyway  I  don't  count 
— but  it's  making  your  father  an  old  man  before  his 
time  .  .  ." 

She  turned  her  back  on  him  without  speaking, 
and  pulled  a  branch  of  cherry-blossom  down  against 
her  face.  The  utter  desolation  of  her  attitude  kept 
him  hesitating  miserably.  At  last  he  came  a  step 
nearer. 

"  Olive,  I've  not  .  .  .  upset  you,  have  I  ?" 

"  Oh  no,  I'm  not  upset ;  only  there's  no  use  in 
talking  about  these  things.  I  know  you  all  mean 
kindly,  but  you'd  better  let  me  alone." 

She  raised  her  head  after  a  moment,  still  holding 
down  the  flowering  branch. 

''  About  father  ...  I  think  perhaps  I'd  better 
have  kept  away  from  my  people  altogether — from 
everybody,  I  mean.  It  would  have  been  fairer  to 
all  of  you,  and  .  .  .  not  so  hard  for  me." 

The  branch  had  begun  to  tremble  under  her  hand. 

"  It  was  very  good  of  father  and  .  .  .  everyone, 
to  be  so  patient.  I  .  .  .  shall  be  going  away 
soon.  .  .  ." 

Then  her  voice  died  out  softly.  She  stood  looking 
straight  before  her,  with  dilated  eyes. 

"  I  haven't  a  notion  what  you  mean,"  Dick  burst 
out.  "  I'm  talking  in  the  dark,  of  course ;  but  I 
know  that  the  best  cure  for  a  personal  grief  is  to 


240  OLIVE    LATHAM 

have  something  outside  of  it  that  you  believe  in ;  and 
I've  never  regretted  so  bitterly  as  now  that  I  didn't 
manage  to  win  you  over  to  Socialism  in  the  old 
days.  If  I  hadn't  been  such  a  confounded  ass 
then  .  .  ." 

"  Socialism?"  The  cherry-branch  sprang  back. 
She  turned  and  faced  him,  laughing,  under  a  rain 
of  white  petals.  "  '  Morrison's  pills  for  universal 
happiness'?  Which  kind,  for  choice?  The  Hamp- 
stead  variety,  all  economic  statistics  and  afternoon 
tea,  or  the  old  Bermondsey  sort  that  you  were  so 
fond  of,  with  the  beer  and  the  banners?  I  think, 
if  I  were  going  in  for  anything,  I'd  try  anarchism; 
the  kind  that  flourishes  in  back-streets  in  Soho,  with 
dyed  moustaches  and  sardine-tins  full  of  picric  acid. 
There's  something  satisfying  about  that,  anyway." 

He  drew  back  slowly  and  stood  looking  at  her,  his 
tanned  face  grown  pale. 

"  I  beg  your  pardon,  dear,"  he  said  at  last  huskily. 
"  It  was  my  fault  for  interfering  with  you.  I  won't 
do  it  again." 

The  girl's  eyes  softened. 

"  I'm  sorry,  Dick ;  I  don't  want  to  be  brutal  to  you 
or  to  anyone,  if  you'll  only  let  me  alone.  But  try  to 
understand  that  you  can't  help  me;  no  one  in  the 
world  can  help  me.     I  must  find  my  own  way  out." 

The  fear  came  back  into  her  face.     She  turned 


OLIVE    LATHAM  241 

slowly  away  from  him;  and  he,  watching  her  as 
she  walked  down  the  path,  saw  her  pause  beside  a 
red-tipped  daisy  that  looked  up  at  her  out  of  the  wet 
grass  with  its  wide,  confident  gaze.  Cold  dread  fell 
upon  him  as  she  crushed  the  wee  white  thing  de- 
liberately under  the  heel  of  her  shoe.  She  walked  on, 
and  he  stood  looking  after  her  in  dreary  wonder. 
Was  this  Olive,  and  did  she  grudge  joy  and  sunshine 
to  all  living  things  because  Vladimir  was  dead  ? 


i6 


CHAPTER    III 

Clear  May  sunlight  shone  on  the  blossoming 
clover-field,  on  the  hawthorn  hedge  beside  the  copse, 
on  the  white  stile  where  the  footpaths  crossed. 
Karol,  walking  up  from  Heathbridge  station,  paused 
to  look  back  over  green  slopes  at  the  golden  butter- 
cup meadows  spread  below. 

With  the  whole  afternoon  before  him  there  was 
no  need  for  hurry.  That  was  fortunate,  as  matters 
stood :  he  would  want  quite  steady  nerves  to  meet 
Olive;  and  of  late,  whenever  the  chronic  strain 
under  which  he  lived  happened  to  be  a  little  heavier 
than  usual,  he  had  found  it  no  easy  matter  to  keep 
them  steady.  Not  that  he  had  ever  failed,  so  far; 
no  one  else  had  guessed  that  anything  was  wrong 
with  him,  but  he  had  known  it  himself  for  a  long 
time,  and  now  he  knew  what  it  was.  Luckily  these 
things  come  slowly;  he  wouldn't  have  to  go  under 
just  yet.  There  would  be  time  to  get  a  lot  more 
work  done  first. 

He  sat  down  on  the  stile,  putting  up  one  foot  on 

the  lower  rung  with  a  curiously  awkward  movement, 

and  watched  the  flitting  waves  of  light  and  shadow 

on  the  clover.     A  few  yellow  patches  of  turnip- 
242 


OLIVE    LATHAM  243 

flower,  seeded  from  last  year's  crop,  stood  out  boldly- 
above  the  dusky  crimson  of  the  clover-field.  On  the 
other  side  of  the  path  was  young  wheat,  with  here 
and  there  an  early  cornflower  or  poppy,  and  beyond 
that  a  honey-scented  beanfield.  Close  to  him,  in  the 
hedge,  a  family  of  baby  sparrows  twittered  softly  in 
their  nest. 

He  pulled  a  notebook  out  of  his  pocket,  and  began 
to  sum  up  his  engagements  for  next  week.  He  had 
to  go  into  Essex  to  see  a  man  on  business,  and 
another  wanted  him  to  run  up  to  Scotland  about 
those  Polish  miners  that  had  got  into  a  trade  union 
dispute.  They  must  wait  a  bit.  Then  there  were 
some  starving  emigrants  in  Liverpool,  who  must  be 
seen  to  at  once.  As  for  London,  there  were  a^  dozen 
appointments  in  the  East  End,  one  in  the  lobby  of 
the  House  of  Commons,  two  in  Bayswater.  .  .  . 

He  unfolded  a  map.  ''  East  Ham.  .  .  .  No,  he 
must  come  to  me ;  I  can't  spare  the  time.  Finsbury 
Park;  where  is  it?    Battersea.  ..." 

The  consulting-room  where  he  had  sat  a  few 
hours  ago  came  back  in  a  flash. 

"  You  know,  yourself,"  the  grave  voice  had  said ; 
"  there  is  no  cure ;  but  you  may  be  able  to  put  it  off 
for  a  few  years  more  if  you  go  slowly  for  a  bit,  or 
take  a  thorough  rest." 

"  I'm  one  of  the  organizers  of  an  active  and  grow- 


244  OLIVE    LATHAM 

ing  political  party,"  he  had  answered.  "  It's  not  a 
life  that  gives  one  much  chance  to  go  slowly;  and  as 
for  resting,  I  suppose  there'll  be  time  for  that  when 
it  comes." 

"  Would  your  party  rather  do  without  you  for  a 
few  months,  or  altogether?  Come  now,  you're  a 
doctor  yourself;  you  know  as  well  as  I  do  what  it 
means." 

Yes,  he  knew.  All  the  same,  he  must  put  a  few 
things  straight  before  he  knocked  off  work.  And 
certainly  he  must  look  after  Olive. 

"Have  many  of  your  folk  so  much  grit?"  the 
specialist  had  asked  him  as  they  shook  hands.  He 
had  merely  shrugged  his  shoulders  for  answer ;  what 
use  in  explaining?  It  was  not  a  case  of  "  grit,"  but 
just  that  death  didn't  happen  to  be  the  thing  he 
minded  most.  For  death  was,  after  all,  the  worst  it 
need  come  to ;  he  himself  could  decide  how  long  he 
cared  to  go  on  living,  since  the  disease  itself  is  not 
merciful  enough  to  kill.  At  any  rate,  it  would  leave 
his  mind  quite  clear,  so  he  would  be  free  to  settle 
matters  at  his  discretion.  If  a  man  has  nothing 
worse  than  that  to  be  afraid  of  ...  to  be  afraid  of. 
.  .  .  He  dropped  the  map,  groped  after  it  for  an 
instant,  then  let  his  hands  fall,  and  sat  still. 

This  was  the  enemy,  the  hidden  fear  that  haunted 
him;    this  one  memory  that  would  come  back  and 


OLIVE    LATHAM  245 

catch  him  by  the  throat.  Happily  it  came  very  sel- 
dom ;  but  then  suddenly,  as  a  beast  springs  and  gives 
no  warning.  It  was  the  memory  of  a  certain  night 
in  Akatui. 

And  yet  there  was  nothing  to  remember,  nothing 
to  be  afraid  of,  except  fear.  When  matters  had 
gone  really  wrong,  he  had  always  been  able  to  keep 
his  head.  Perhaps  he  was  born  insensitive,  perhaps 
it  was  because  he  was  physically  so  big  and  strong; 
at  any  rate,  he  had  managed,  somehow,  to  jog 
through  things  that  had  driven  men  as  good  as  he  to 
drink,  or  madness,  or  suicide.  He  had  been  quite 
cool  those  last  three  nights  beside  the  dying  Squirrel, 
his  best  friend  out  there;  black,  endless  nights, 
hideous  with  the  gasping  that  he  could  do  nothing 
to  relieve. 

Then  there  was  the  famine-strike,  when  the  col- 
lective request  of  the  prisoners  for  the  dismissal  of 
a  brutal  warder  had  been  ignored,  and  they  had 
forced  the  hands  of  the  authorities  by  refusing  food 
and  drink.  They  had  won  in  the  end,  of  course;  a 
general  slow  suicide  would  be  too  ugly  a  scandal, 
and  might  even  get  into  the  foreign  papers ;  but  the 
victory  had  been  expensive.  Yet  even  on  the  last 
day,  when  more  than  half  of  the  strikers  were  light- 
headed with  the  pain  of  thirst,  he  had  kept  perfectly 
steady.    And  he  had  been  among  those  who  had  not 


246  OLIVE    LATHAM 

succumbed  in  the  middle  of  hell  let  loose,  when  epi- 
lepsy struck  the  place  like  a  tornado,  and  one  man 
after  another  fell  shrieking  to  the  floor.  It  was  the 
same  when  the  youngest  of  their  number,  in  a 
moment  of  despair,  had  hidden  and  drunk  the  vitriol 
used  in  the  work.  The  boy  (he  was  only  twenty- 
three,  and  everyone  called  him  "The  Boy'')  had 
lingered  for  thirty  hours,  conscious  to  the  last,  and 
died  in  Karol's  arms. 

All  these  things  he  had  faced,  and  conquered,  and 
put  behind  him  with  a  resolute  will,  and  there  was 
not  a  horror  among  them  all  that  he  could  not  forget 
or  dared  not  remember.  But  that  one  night  was 
different. 

As  for  the  particular  thing  that  had  happened, 
it  was  so  slight,  so  unimportant  a  trifle  that  he  had 
even  forgotten  it;  merely  some  chance  addition  to 
the  thousand  petty  miseries  that  made  up  the  sum  of 
life.  And  he  had  realized  in  one  instant  that  this  was 
the  limit,  that  he  could  bear  nothing  more,  that  at  the 
next  strain  his  reason  would  go.  That  night  he  had 
sat  on  the  edge  of  his  sleeping-bench  and  fought  for 
breath;  not  for  courage,  or  resignation,  or  any  of 
the  high  philosophy  that  helps  men  through  dark 
places ;  just  simply  for  breath.  And  even  now,  after 
so  many  years,  the  red-hot  memory  would  come  back 
like  this. 


OLIVE    LATHAM  247 

He  might  be  a  fool,  once  in  a  way,  but  at  least  he 
was  never  a  fool  for  many  minutes  on  end.  He 
pulled  himself  together  presently,  with  set  teeth. 

The  thing  was  absurd,  of  course.  If  he  had  not 
gone  mad  then  he  was  unlikely  to  lose  himself  now ; 
and  as  for  anything  that  remains  in  one's  own  hands, 
that  can  be  put  straight  at  will  with  a  dose  of  mor- 
phia, anybody  can  face  that,  with  a  little  practice. 

He  got  off  the  stile,  picked  up  his  map  and  put 
it  away ;  then,  leaning  his  arms  along  the  rail,  looked 
down  again  at  the  golden  meadows.  A  girl  in  a  blue 
dress  was  walking  through  the  buttercups.  As  she 
came  nearer  the  rolling  swell  of  the  land  hid  her  for 
a  moment,  then  her  figure  appeared  again,  outlined, 
as  the  path  turned,  against  red  clover  or  green  wheat. 
Her  face  was  hidden,  partly  by  an  armful  of  butter- 
cups, and  partly  by  the  brim  of  her  shady  hat.  He 
drew  back  from  the  stile  to  let  her  pass,  and  stood 
looking  at  her  with  a  stifling  contraction  of  the  heart. 
Was  it  a  custom  of  English  girls  to  walk  with  that 
untrammelled  step,  and  carry  their  heads  that  way? 

She  shifted  the  buttercups  to  the  other  arm,  and 
he  saw  her  face.  The  next  instant  she  had  recog- 
nised him,  and  stopped  short,  a  statue  in  the  path. 
The  buttercups  slid  from  her  hands,  one  by  one,  and 
fell  at  her  feet. 

Karol  stooped  down  and  picked  them  all  up,  very 


248  OLIVE    LATHAM 

carefully,  before  he  spoke.  It  took  him  rather  a  long 
time,  but  she  remained  quite  motionless. 

"  I  couldn't  manage  to  come  before,"  he  said, 
gathering  up  the  last  stalks.  "  I've  had  so  many 
things  to  do,  somehow." 

''  Yes?"  she  murmured,  with  a  troubled  look.  ''  I 
haven't  been  doing  anything;  there  isn't  anything 
to  do." 

They  crossed  the  stile  and  walked  down  the  wood- 
path. 

"  Look,"  she  said,  pausing  with  her  feet  in  the 
long  grass ;  "  those  are  speedwells." 

She  stooped  to  gather  a  few  sprays,  and  blew  the 
tiny  flowers  off  their  stems,  laughing. 

"  See,  they  are  all  gone.    Everything  goes." 

''  Not  quite  everything." 

She  looked  at  him  with  narrowed  eyes. 

"  You  were  always  accurate.  Did  you  come  by 
the  midday  train?  You  must  be  thirsty;  come  in 
and  have  some  tea." 

He  followed  her  into  the  garden.  She  walked 
with  her  head  erect,  feeling,  with  dull  resentment, 
like  an  insect  under  a  microscope. 

"  Father,"  she  said,  as  Mr.  Latham  stepped  out 
from  under  the  great  wistaria  to  meet  them ;  "  this  is 
Dr.  Slavinski,  whom  I  met  in  Russia.  He  is  stay- 
ing at  Heathbridge  for  the  week-end." 


OLIVE    LATHAM  249 

The  covert  antagonism  showed  for  one  instant  in 
her  father's  face;  then  he  shook  hands  graciously, 
but  Karol  had  seen  and  understood. 

"  He's  got  a  grudge  against  people  she  met  in 
Russia,"  he  thought,  turning  to  bow  to  Jenny,  who 
came  up  with  her  straw  hat  swinging  from  her  arm. 
"  And  so  has  the  pretty  sister.  They'd  turn  me  out 
of  the  house  if  they  dared." 

It  was,  indeed,  only  by  some  exercise  of  self- 
control  that  Olive's  relatives  behaved  with  ordinary 
courtesy  to  her  guest.  All  three  of  them  were  pro- 
foundly convincd  that  this  hairy  and  tow-coloured 
stranger  had  the  key  to  the  locked  door  at  which  they 
had  been  knocking  in  vain  for  fifteen  months;  and 
all  three,  in  their  varying  degrees,  suspected  him  of 
using  remorselessly  the  power  over  her  which  he 
apparently  possessed.  She,  for  her  part,  held  him  at 
arm's  length,  keeping,  the  whole  afternoon,  as  near 
as  possible  to  her  mother  and  sister,  in  evident  fear  of 
being  left  an  instant  alone  with  him.  Twice  during 
tea  Mr.  Latham's  hands  clenched  themselves  under 
the  table  at  the  sight  of  her  scared  eyes.  As  for  the 
mother,  she  could  hardly  even  conceal  her  dread  and 
dislike  of  the  intruder;  and  Jenny  sat  opposite  to 
him  like  an  angry  spaniel,  ready  to  fly  at  his  throat 
if  he  should  harm  her  sister,  and  looking  prettier 
than  ever  in  her  rage. 


250  OLIVE    LATHAM 

Karol,  according  to  his  wont,  saw  everything  and 
held  his  tongue.  When  he  left  the  house,  parrying 
Mrs.  Latham's  cold  invitation  to  stay  and  dine, 
with  a  plea  of  business  letters  to  write,  he  already 
knew  that  Olive  had  suffered  a  dangerous  nervous 
breakdown,  that  she  had  kept  her  people  ignorant 
of  what  had  caused  it,  and  that  they,  in  their 
grief  and  bewilderment,  suspected  him  of  every 
indefinite  abomination  that  chanced  to  cross  their 
minds. 

"  Father,"  Jenny  burst  out  when  her  sister  went 
up  to  bed ;  "  Olive's  afraid  of  that  man !" 

"  What  makes  you  think  so  ?"  Mr.  Latham  asked 
her  drily,  with  his  face  turned  away. 

"  I  don't  think  it,  I  know  it.  When  my  crewel- 
silks  dropped  I  rested  my  hand  on  her  knee  while 
I  stooped  for  them,  and  she  was  shaking  from  head 
to  foot." 

"  There,  there !  light  your  candle,  my  dear ;  your 
imagination  runs  away  with  you." 

When  she  shut  the  door  behind  her,  the  husband 
and  wife  turned  with  a  common  impulse  and  looked 
at  each  other. 

"Alfred,  what  is  it?  What  can  she  have  to  do 
with  him?" 

"I  don't  know,"  he  answered  slowly;  "but  I 
mean  to  know  before  he  goes  back  to  London.     I 


OLIVE    LATHAM  251 

haven't  dared  to  ask  her  anything,  but  if  she's  being 
threatened  or  terrified  ..." 

Mrs.  Latham  clasped  her  hands. 

"  Alfred,  you  don't  think  ..." 

She  hesitated,  with  wide,  frightened  eyes. 

"  You  remember  .  .  .  when  the  telegraph  boy 
waked  her  .  .  .  You  don't  think  she's  got  mixed 
up  with  .  .  .  Nihilists  or  horrible  people  of  that 
sort?" 

"  I  don't  know  what  to  think.  The  man  may  be 
a  blackmailer  or  anything.  But  it's  no  use  jumping 
to  conclusions;  it  may  be  just  that  seeing  him  re- 
minds her  of  some  shock.  Still,  I  too  had  the  im- 
pression that  she  was  afraid  of  him." 

When  Olive  came  downstairs  next  morning,  very 
pale  and  heavy-eyed,  her  parents  had  finished  break- 
fast, and  were  standing  by  the  window  talking  ear- 
nestly together.    They  left  off  as  she  entered. 

"  I'm  sorry,  mother,"  she  said ;   "  I'm  late  again." 

''  You  look  as  if  you'd  had  another  bad  night ;  not 
a  headache,  I  hope  ?" 

"  A  little  headache,  nothing  to  matter." 

Her  mother  stood  looking  at  her  for  a  moment, 
mournfully  perplexed ;  then  sighed  and  went  out  of 
the  room,  while  Mr.  Latham  drummed  with  his 
fingers  on  the  window-pane.  Presently  he  turned 
round. 


252  OLIVE    LATHAM 

"  Olive,  I  promised  you  a  year  ago  not  to  ask  you 
questions.  There  is  one  question  that  I  must  ask 
you  now.  Is  that  man  who  came  here  yesterday  a 
friend  of  yours  ?" 

Her  cup  rattled  against  the  saucer  as  she  put  it 
down. 

"  What  do  you  mean,  father  ?" 

"  Nothing  beyond  just  what  I  say,  my  child. 
Your  secrets,  since  you  must  have  secrets,  are  quite 
safe  from  me.  I  only  want  to  know :  is  that  man  a 
friend  or  an  enemy  ?" 

She  turned  sideways,  leaning  on  the  arm  of  her 
chair,  and  covered  her  face.    He  bent  down  over  her. 

"  Olive,  do  you  want  help  ?  Don't  tell  me  any- 
thing else ;  only  tell  me  that.  Are  you  afraid  of  this 
man?" 

She  sprang  up,  releasing  her  hand. 

"  No,  no ;  he's  my  best  friend.  Oh,  you  don't 
understand ;  you  don't  understand !" 

"  Have  you  given  me  much  chance  to  understand, 
my  dear  ?" 

There  was  no  reproach  in  his  voice,  but  the  girl 
dropped  her  eyes.  A  vague  sense  that  she  had  been 
cruel  to  her  people  began,  for  the  first  time,  to 
struggle  upwards  in  her  mind. 

Her  father  was  drumming  on  the  window-glass 
again,  telling  himself  despondently  that  he  had  only 


OLIVE    LATHAM  253 

made  things  worse  by  speaking,  when  he  felt  her 
arms  sHp  round  his  neck.  He  held  his  breath ;  it  was 
the  first  caress  since  she  had  come  home. 

"  Father  .  .  ." 

Her  hands  trembled  on  his  shoulder. 

''  Father,  I've  been  nothing  but  a  disappointment 
to  you  .  .  .  and  mother.  ...  I  can't  help  it;  I 
can't  talk  about  things.  Karol  .  .  .  Dr.  Slavinski 
...  is  the  only  person  that  knows  all  about  me. 
Perhaps  he  can  help  me ;  no  one  else  can.  I  ...  I 
am  sorry,  father;  but  I  wish  you  wouldn't  worry 
about  me.  I  am  not  the  sort  of  daughter  you  ought 
to  have  had.     And  .  .  .  you  have  Jenny.  .  .  ." 

He  caught  her  to  him  and  kissed  her,  with  a  lump 
in  his  throat.  It  was  on  his  tongue  to  cry  out  to  her 
that  she  was  more  to  him  than  a  thousand  Jennies; 
but  though  she  tried  to  return  the  kiss  he  felt  her 
shudder  with  uncontrollable  physical  repugnance, 
and  drew  back  from  her  as  if  he  had  been  stung. 

''Yes,"  he  said,  as  he  turned  away;  ''it  is  for- 
tunate that  we  have  Jenny." 

When  he  looked  up  she  had  left  the  room. 

Jenny  and  her  mother  came  back  from  church  to 
the  Sunday  mid-day  dinner  in  some  fear  lest  they 
might  find  the  house  invaded  by  the  objectionable 
visitor.  But  he  had  not  come,  Mr.  Latham  told 
them ;  and  Olive  had  spent  the  morning  alone  in  her 


254.  OLIVE    LATHAM 

room.  She  came  down  to  dinner,  still  very  white, 
but  with  a  set  look  in  her  face  that  was  new  to  them. 

"  How  long  is  your  friend  staying  in  Heath- 
bridge?"  the  mother  asked,  as  they  rose  from  the 
table. 

"  He  goes  back  to  London  to-morrow." 

^'  Is  he  living  there?" 

"  I  don't  know  where  he  is  going  to  live;  he  has 
only  just  come  to  England." 

Mrs.  Latham  folded  up  her  napkin  with  elaborate 
care,  trying  to  speak  lightly. 

"  Is  he  likely  to  call  again,  do  you  think,  before 
he  goes  back  ?" 

"  I  sent  Jimmy  Bates  down  this  morning  to  ask 
him  to  come  and  spend  the  afternoon  with  me." 

Everyone  seemed  startled  and  uncomfortable. 
Jenny,  glancing  out  of  the  window,  broke  the  awk- 
ward pause  by  saying  viciously : 

"  And  there  he  is,  coming  up  the  road.  Do  all 
Russians  walk  as  clumsily  as  that,  and  kick  up  the 
dust  with  their  toes  ?" 

"  Jenny,  Jenny !"  Mrs.  Latham  expostulated,  with 
an  anxious  look  at  Olive,  who  only  remarked : 

"  He  is  not  a  Russian." 

"  Well,  whatever  he  is,  I  never  saw  a  man  walk  so 
badly.  There,  I  knew  he'd  blunder  over  the  mat! 
And  I  don't  believe  he's  brushed  his  hair  since  .  .  ." 


OLIVE    LATHAM  255 

''  That  will  do,  Jenny,"  her  father  interrupted  in 
a  tone  she  seldom  heard,  and  turned  to  Olive. 

"  I  dare  say  you  would  like  to  have  a  talk  alone 
with  your  friend  part  of  the  time.  After  tea,  when 
your  mother  goes  to  lie  down,  Jenny  and  I  will  leave 
you  to  yourselves." 

"  Thank  you,"  she  answered,  while  Jenny  and  the 
mother  stared  amazed. 

Deadly  small-talk  followed,  in  an  atmosphere 
charged  with  storm.  Jenny  showed  the  visitor  round 
the  garden,  watching  him  suspiciously  with  bright 
eyes,  and  holding  her  muslin  skirts  out  of  the  dust 
he  raised.  The  hostess,  nervous  and  perplexed,  con- 
tributed occasional  polite  remarks,  and  her  husband 
smoked  and  held  his  tongue.  Who  or  what  the 
big,  quiet  man  might  be  he  dared  not  think;  prob- 
ably a  Socialist,  or  something  equally  objectionable. 
Mr.  Latham  had  no  love  for  extreme  opinions,  espe- 
cially when  held  by  hairy  foreigners;  and  was  half 
ready  to  suspect  that  it  was  ''  some  random  stuff  of 
that  sort"  which  had  stolen  away  his  daughter  and 
given  him  instead  this  joyless  changeling.  But  for 
fifteen  months  he  had  tried,  and  failed,  to  help  her; 
it  was  not  for  him  to  make  difficulties  if  anyone  else, 
Socialist  or  no,  could  succeed.  He  was  ready  to 
welcome  Anarchism  itself,  if  it  would  drive  the 
dreadful  lassitude  out  of  her  eyes. 


256  OLIVE    LATHAM 

Some  of  Jenny's  friends  dropped  in  casually  to 
tea  on  the  lawn.  Though  a  little  astonished,  for  the 
first  moment,  at  KaroFs  size  and  uncouth  appear- 
ance, they  were  soon  reassured  by  his  amiably  nega- 
tive manners,  and  succeeded  far  better  than  the 
family  in  keeping  up  such  dribble  of  platitudes  as 
appeared  suited  to  the  slow  intelligence  of  this  good- 
natured  giant.  Olive  was  unusually  gay  and  talka- 
tive; and  her  father,  glancing  at  Karol  from  time 
to  time,  saw  that  he  had  noticed  this,  as  he  noticed 
everything. 

"  The  man's  got  eyes  in  the  back  of  his  head,"  he 
thought.  ''  He  sees  those  people  are  fools  enough  to 
take  him  for  a  fool;  and  he  sees  she  doesn't  want 
them  undeceived.    And,  yes,  he  sees  I  know  it." 

After  tea  the  mother  went  to  her  room.  Jenny, 
at  a  sign  from  her  father,  took  her  friends  to  call  on 
a  neighbour,  and  he  carried  his  book  into  the  house. 

Karol  held  the  gate  open  while  the  ladies  passed 
out,  chattering  like  a  flock  of  starlings ;  then  closed 
it  deliberately  and  turned  to  look  at  Olive.  She  was 
sitting  on  the  bench  under  the  blossoming  chestnut- 
tree,  dangling  a  cluster  of  early  cherries  by  their 
stalks.  He  had  never  seen  her  look  so  young,  so 
English,  so  like  Jenny.  Her  face,  her  attitude,  her 
cool  and  dainty  summer  dress,  her  burnished  coils  of 
thick  brown  hair,   were  all  in  harmony  with  the 


OLIVE    LATHAM  257 

ordered  ease  of  the  smooth  lawn,  with  the  placid 
stateliness  of  the  chestnut- tree.  As  he  watched  her, 
the  troubled  shadows  deepened  in  Karol's  eyes. 

"  Well,  my  girl,"  he  said;  "  and  how  long  is  this 
sort  of  thing  going  to  last  ?" 

The  hand  that  dangled  the  cherries  paused  for  an 
instant  in  the  air,  then  fell  at  her  side,  the  fingers 
tightened  over  the  stalks. 

Soon  she  looked  round  and  tossed  the  cherries  on 
the  grass.  A  bright-eyed  robin  flew  down  from  the 
syringa-bush  and  pecked  at  them,  glancing  up  at  her. 
He  was  fed  with  crumbs  every  morning,  and  was 
tame. 

"  Don't  you  think  that  a  wise  bird  ?"  she  said. 
"  So  long  as  there  are  people  who  throw  cher- 
ries .  .  ." 

She  rose  and  set  her  back  against  the  tree-trunk. 
But  for  a  little  quivering  of  the  nostrils,  her  face  was 
unchanged.  When  Karol  spoke  again  his  voice  was 
deep  and  hoarse. 

"  Tm  a  bit  short  of  time,  you  see.  I  came  down 
here  to  know  if  I  could  be  of  any  use  to  you." 

'*  Did  you,  Karol  ?  I've  come  a  longer  way ;  and 
I've  come  in  the  dark.  I  don't  see  what  use  you  can 
be  to  me,  unless  .  .  ." 

There  her  voice  died  out.    He  came  closer. 

"Unless  .  .  .    ?" 

17 


258  OLIVE    LATHAM 

"  Unless  you  will  help  me  get  ...  a  pass- 
port .  .  ." 

"  Ah !"  was  all  Karol  said ;  but  she  looked  up  at 
him  quickly,  and  saw  that  he  had  guessed  her 
meaning. 

She  caught  her  throat  with  both  hands. 

"  Oh,  I  am  haunted  by  the  furies !  Karol,  it  will 
end  that  way.  I  shut  it  out  and  beat  it  off,  and  it 
comes  back,  and  back.  ...  I  shall  give  in  at  last, 
and  do  it;  I  can't  hold  out  for  ever.  .  .  ." 

She  cowered  down  on  the  bench,  hiding  her 
face. 

Karol  stood  still  and  looked  at  the  bird  pecking 
the  cherries.  If  he  had  understood  less  clearly  he 
might  have  found  some  comfort  to  offer ;  as  it  was, 
the  very  childishness  of  the  thing  tied  his  tongue. 
That  she  should  have  fought  so  long,  so  desperately, 
with  a  pitiful  bogey  like  this ! 

''  Let  us  come  to  details,"  he  said  at  last.  "  You 
want  to  get  into  Russia  under  a  false  name ;  on  your 
people's  account,  of  course?" 

A  shudder  ran  through  the  crouching  figure. 

''  How  could  I  ever  let  them  find  out  it  was  I  ? 
Just  think  what  it  would  mean  to  them !  I  must  dis- 
appear. .  .  ." 

"  Well,  that's  easy  enough  to  manage,  if  neces- 
sary.   But  if  I'm  to  help  you,  I  must  know  what  I'm 


OLIVE    LATHAM  259 

helping  you  with.  You  can't  tell  me?  Am  I  to 
guess  ?  I  suppose  you  want  to  kill  someone.  Who 
it  it?" 

She  looked  up  at  him  like  a  child,  wide-eyed  and 
innocent. 

'*  I  don't  know ;  I  never  thought  about  it." 

He  put  a  hand  on  her  shoulder. 

"  Think  then ;  and  think  well.  You  can't  afford 
to  make  a  mistake  in  this,  because  you'll  be  dead 
before  you  can  put  it  right." 

Her  head  drooped  slowly.  Orice  she  caught  her 
breath  in  a  quick,  furtive  way,  and  the  hand  pressed 
more  heavily  on  her  shoulder.  Presently  she  looked 
up  again. 

*'  I  can't  think ;  my  head  gets  all  muddled.  And 
what  does  it  matter  who  it  is  ?  Madeyski — anybody ; 
it's  a  way  out." 

"  We  will  discuss  that  later,"  he  said.  "  Just  give 
your  mind  to  one  question  now :  will  any  weapon  do, 
or  must  it  be  a  knife  ?" 

She  repeated  the  word,  shuddering. 

"  A  knife.  .  .  ." 

''  Something  that  you  can  feel  pass  through  a  solid 
substance,  and  be  sure  it's  not  a  shadow.  .  .  ." 

''  Karol,  Karol !    Then  you  know  .  .  ." 

She  had  sprung  up  with  a  frenzied  outcry.  Karol 
pushed  her  gently  back  on  to  the  bench. 


260  OLIVE    LATHAM 

"  Why,  you  poor  child !  And  did  you  think  you 
were  the  only  one?" 

At  that  she  broke  into  wild  sobbing,  and  clung  to 
him  like  a  drowning  creature.  As  for  him,  he  drew 
her  close  to  him  and  stroked  her  hair,  as  one  caresses 
a  scared  baby ;  and  smiled  to  think  what  a  fuss  theo- 
logians make  over  their  twopenny  hells  in  a  world 
where  a  man  may  have  to  bear  things  of  this  sort 
and  to  hold  his  tongue. 

When  she  had  worn  herself  out  with  sobbing,  and 
leaned  back  against  the  tree-trunk  with  a  hand  over 
her  eyes,  his  skilful  interrogation  drew  from  her,  bit 
by  bit,  the  details  of  the  fear  that  haunted  her,  the 
nightmares  and  hallucinations,  the  vanishing  pic- 
tures, the  shrivelling  films. 

"  This  is  the  horrible  thing,"  she  told  him : 
"  while  Volodya  lived,  I  made  him  more  unhappy 
than  he  need  have  been  by  worrying  him  with 
scruples  of  conscience  about  his  political  work.  I 
didn't  know  of  anything  definite  to  object  to;  but 
I'd  got  a  sort  of  general  notion  that  he  believed  in 
answering  violence  with  violence;  and  that  seemed 
to  me  so  wrong  that  nothing  could  ever  make  it 
right.  I  haven't  altered  one  bit ;  I  think  violence  is 
always  wrong  and  always  stupid ;  I  don't  believe  it 
can  ever  help  anybody.  I  tell  myself  that  every  day, 
all  day  long;   and  then  I  go  to  bed  and  lie  half  the 


OLIVE    LATHAM  261 

night  thinking  out  plans  to  kill  somebody  ...  to 
kill  somebody.  ..." 

Her  hands  began  to  wander  up  and  down  the 
skirt  of  her  dress.  Karol  leaned  across  and  touched 
them,  and  they  grew  still  at  once. 

"  I  want  to  get  clear  about  one  thing,"  he  said. 
"  You  are  quite  sure  it's  not  any  motive  of  personal 
revenge  that  is  prompting  you  ?" 

"Revenge?  What's  the  use  of  that?  All  the 
revenge  in  the  world  won't  bring  Volodya  back." 

"  It's  merely  to  escape  from  the  films,  isn't  it  ? 
You  want  to  destroy  something  that  has  a  tangible 
bodily  presence,  and  satisfy  yourself  that  it  is  solid? 
Then  why  must  it  be  just  a  Russian  official  ?  Try  to 
give  me  a  logical  reason  for  that." 

She  shook  her  head  and  answered  again : 

"  I  don't  know." 

"  One  more  point,  and  I  have  done.  You  told 
me  you  had  been  to  a  doctor  in  London.  Does  he 
know  about  the  films  ?" 

"  No,  no ;  how  could  you  think  I  should  tell 
him?  Karol — oh,  you  don't  think  .  .  .  You  don't 
think  I'm  going  mad  ..." 

Her  eyes  dilated  fearfully. 

"  No,  I  think  you  have  been  ill,  and  are  getting 
better.  As  for  this  scheme  of  yours,  we  can't  begin 
to  discuss  it  till  you  are  quite  well.    If  in  six  months' 


262  OLIVE    LATHAM 

time  you  tell  me  you  are  still  of  the  same  mind,  I  will 
see  what  I  can  do.  Meanwhile,  I  want  your  help  in 
a  practical  matter  at  once.  I  have  an  obstetric  case 
in  London  that  needs  first-class  nursing;  there  are 
dangerous  complications.  Will  you  undertake  it 
for  me?" 

She  recoiled. 

"  Anything  but  that !  I  can  never  do  nursing 
again." 

"  It's  for  you  to  decide,  of  course ;  but  I  have 
been  rather  counting  on  you.  It's  connected  with 
some  work  that  Volodya  cared  enough  about  to  risk 
his  safety  for  it,  and  I  felt  sure  you  wouldn't  refuse." 

"What  work?" 

"  Looking  after  our  peasants  that  have  escaped 
from  religious  persecution.  A  lot  of  pious,  old- 
fashioned  country  folk  in  Poland  and  Lithuania  be- 
long to  a  special  body,  the  Uniats.  The  Russians 
are  trying  to  force  the  orthodox  Church  on  them, 
and  the  ones  that  are  left  alive,  and  have  not  been 
.  .  .  converted,  have  made  a  wild  rush  for  America. 
Many  of  the  sick  and  feeble  are  stranded  half-way 
and  starving  in  London ;  and  one  of  the  last  things 
Volodya  did  was  to  get  up  a  subscription  for  them 
secretly  among  St.  Petersburg  students  and  work- 
ing-men." 

"  And  the  obstetric  case?" 


OLIVE    LATHAM  263 

"  It's  a  peasant  woman  whose  husband  has  been 
sent  to  Siberia  for  refusing  to  take  the  Sacrament 
in  a  Russian  church.  There  will  be  two  children 
left  unprovided  for  if  she  dies,  so  I  want  to  find  a 
nurse  that  I  can  trust  to  save  her,  if  possible. 
They're  not  easy  folk  to  deal  with;  they  speak 
nothing  but  the  old  Lithuanian  language,  which 
nobody  understands;  and  they're  dirty,  and  igno- 
rant, and  half  crazed  with  fear.  They're  so  used  to 
ill-treatment  that  if  one  shows  them  kindness  they 
suspect  a  trap.  ..." 

''  How  soon  do  you  want  me?" 

"  Next  week." 

"Very  well;  I'll  come." 

"  I'll  run  in  and  arrange  details  with  you  to- 
morrow. I  must  go  and  write  letters  now.  Good- 
bye." 

He  shook  hands  and  went  away  as  if  they  had 
been  talking  of  everyday  trifles.  She  looked  round 
her  slowly.  The  sunset  was  fading.  She  stood 
alone  in  the  gathering  dusk,  and  yet  was  not  afraid ; 
for  the  painted  films  had  gone. 


CHAPTER    IV 

Mr.  Latham,  coming  home  from  business  the 
next  afternoon,  found  his  wife  in  the  drawing-room 
with  Dick  and  Jenny,  arranging  a  school-treat. 

"Father,"  Jenny  began  at  once;  "he  has  been 
here  again." 

"OHve's  friend?" 

"  Yes,  she  has  gone  out  with  him." 

"  I  can't  understand  why  you  dishke  him  so," 
Dick  said.  "  I  found  him  walking  up  from  Heath- 
bridge  this  afternoon,  and  we  got  into  conversation. 
He's  the  first  person  who  has  succeeded  in  making 
bimetallism  clear  to  me." 

"  Is  that  what  you  talked  about?" 

"  That,  and  trades  unions,  and  the  housing  prob- 
lem, and  protozoa,  and  the  income  tax,  and  village 
football  clubs.  He's  got  a  head  on  his  shoulders, 
anyway." 

Jenny  opened  her  eyes  wide;  that  anyone  could 
find  Karol  interesting  to  talk  with  had  not  occurred 
to  her.  Mrs.  Latham  said  nothing;  but  at  the  first 
opportunity  spoke  to  her  husband  alone. 

"  Alfred,  I  am  convinced  that  man  knows  what 

it  is  that  has  changed  Olive  so." 
264 


OLIVE    LATHAM  265 

"  It's  possible." 

''  He  seems  respectable,  after  all.  He  may  be  able 
to  tell  you.  .  .  ." 

"  I  don't  think  he  is  likely  to  tell  me  anything  with- 
out her  leave,  and  I  certainly  should  not  wish  it." 

"  Alfred,  I'm  not  asking  you  to  do  anything  dis- 
honourable, but  it's  only  right  this  mystery  should 
be  cleared  up.  It's  unnatural  for  a  girl's  own  people 
to  be  kept  in  the  dark  like  this.  He  is  going  back  to 
London  to-night.  I  hoped,  perhaps,  you  would  find 
out  something  while  he  is  here." 

He  went  to  his  study  with  the  old  hopeless  sense 
of  estrangement,  of  faint,  tolerant,  pitying  disgust. 
Poor  soul,  how  patient  and  unselfish  she  was,  how 
ridden  by  an  overgrown  conscience;  and  could 
suggest  to  him,  in  all  innocence,  that  he  should  try 
to  worm  his  daughter's  secrets  from  a  guest  in  his 
own  house.  It  was  useless  to  explain  to  her  that  the 
very  thought  made  him  sick ;  she  would  never  even 
understand  why.  As  for  Jenny,  good  girl  as  she 
was,  a  sense  of  honour  in  trifles  was  no  more  born 
in  her  than  in  her  mother.  Had  he  not  once,  when 
she  was  a  child,  caught  her  cheating  at  croquet?  It 
had  never  happened  again,  but  the  ghost  of  it  rose 
up  afresh  before  him  now.  Of  his  dear  womenfolk, 
Olive  alone  was  untainted  by  these  little,  insignificant, 
terrible  things;   and  Olive  might  have  been  a  thou- 


266  OLIVE    LATHAM 

sand  miles  away  for  all  the  chance  he  had  of  ever 
breaking  down  the  walls  of  silence  that  surrounded 
her. 

He  leaned  his  arms  on  the  table  and  buried  his 
face  in  them;  then  straightened  himself  up  im- 
patiently, hearing  a  knock  at  the  door. 

''  Come  in." 

It  was  Karol. 

"  Can  you  spare  a  little  time  ?  I  want  to  speak  to 
you  before  I  go  back  to  London." 

"  Certainly,"  said  Mr.  Latham,  frigidly  polite. 
"What  is  it?" 

Karol  drew  up  a  chair  in  his  deliberate  way. 

"  I  have  had  a  talk  with  Miss  Latham  about  her 
affairs,  and  she  wishes  me  to  explain  matters  to  you. 
I  had  better  tell  you  first  what  it  was  that  happened 
to  her  .  .  ." 

Her  father  raised  a  hand. 

"  A  moment !  Am  I  to  understand  that  you  come 
to  me  at  my  daughter's  expressed  wish  ?  I  have  no 
curiosity  about  any  secrets  of  hers,  unless  she  really 
desires  I  should  know  them,  and  in  that  case  I  should 
have  thought  she  would  prefer  to  tell  me  herself." 

"  She  has  no  secrets,  but  her  nerves  have  been 
injured  by  a  shock,  and  she  is  still  quite  unfit  to  bear 
any  mention  of  the  subject.  As  I  was  with  her  at  the 
time,  she  has  asked  me  to  tell  you  the  facts,  and  beg 
you  never  to  refer  to  them  again." 


OLIVE    LATHAM  267 

Mr.  Latham  listened  with  a  hand  over  his  face 
while  the  bare  outlines  of  his  daughter's  story  were 
put  before  him  in  the  fewest  possible  words. 

"  Now/'  Karol  went  on,  ''  comes  the  question  of 
her  future.  As  you  see,  her  bodily  health  is  nearly 
restored,  and  her  mind  seems  to  be  recovering  too, 
though  more  slowly.  I  have  had  some  experience 
of  these  cases,  and  I  feel  sure  that  the  sooner  she 
gets  away  from  home  and  back  to  work  the  better. 
She  has  undertaken  to  nurse  a  patient  of  mine  in 
London,  and  I  will  find  her  more  work  when  that  is 
done.  I  think,  if  you  will  trust  her  to  me  for  a  few 
months,  I  can  cure  her.  But  I  must  ask  you  to  leave 
her  entirely  alone  for  some  time." 

"  Do  you  mean  that  we  should  not  see  her  at  all  ?" 

"  Neither  see  her  nor  write  to  her.  If  you  don't 
trust  my  judgment,  tell  your  family  doctor  what  I 
have  told  you ;  he  will  say  that  the  moral  atmosphere 
of  anxious  relatives  is  the  worst  possible  thing  for 
her  just  now." 

It  was  a  long  time  before  Mr.  Latham  spoke. 

"  It's  not  an  easy  thing  you  ask  of  me,"  he  said ; 
"  but  I  have  no  right  to  refuse  it.  I  suppose  we 
owe  the  girl's  reason  to  you,  if  not  her  life." 

''  I  am  not  quite  sure  about  that,"  Karol  answered. 
"  She  might  have  found  her  way  home  alone,  but 
it's  scarcely  likely.     St.  Petersburg  is  not  a  good 


268  OLIVE    LATHAM 

place  to  lose  one's  balance  in,  especially  for  a  woman 
at  night." 

In  the  evening  Mr.  Latham  went  up  to  Olive's 
room. 

"  My  dear,"  he  said;  "  I  understand  you  want  to 
go  to  London  next  week.  I  have  promised  your 
friend  that  none  of  us  will  come  near  you  for  three 
months,  unless  you  send  for  us.  Remember  that  we 
are  always  here  if  you  want  us,  and  .  .  .  come  back 
to  us  as  soon  as  you  can." 

She  spoke  in  a  hurried,  broken  whisper,  locking 
and  unlocking  her  fingers. 

''  Father  .  .  .  you  have  been  ...  I  know  you 
have  been  very  patient.  ...  I  can't  talk  about 
things.  ...  I  can't  .  .  .  Please  don't  tell  mother 
anything.     She  would  only  cry,  and  .  .  ." 

''  Don't  be  afraid,  my  dear;  I  never  tell  things  to 
your  mother." 

She  remembered  afterwards,  with  undying  grati- 
tude, how  he  left  her  to  herself  without  the  dreaded 
comments  and  caresses,  without  one  unnecessary 
word.  The  real  and  close  friendship  between  them 
was  born,  perhaps,  at  that  moment. 

From  cross-questioning  and  tearful  exclamations 
on  Mrs.  Latham's  part  and  Jenny's,  he  was,  of 
course,  unable  to  protect  her,  and  their  evidently 
harmful  effect  upon  her  reconciled  him,  more  or  less. 


OLIVE    LATHAM  269 

to  her  going  away.  Karol,  when  he  met  her  at  Vic- 
toria Station,  saw  at  a  glance  that  she  had  sHpped 
back  during  the  week.  Her  hands  were  more  un- 
steady, and  there  was  a  scared  look  in  her  eyes. 

*'  You  had  better  tell  me  the  truth,"  she  said  next 
day.  "  I  suppose  I  am  .  .  .  not  quite  in  my  right 
mind ;  is  that  so  ?  I  ought  to  know,  you  see,  before 
I  undertake  sick-nursing  again.  And  you  needn't 
mind  telling  me;  I  shan't  make  a  fuss,  whatever 
it  is." 

Karol's  eyes  softened. 

"  You  belong  to  the  class  of  patient  to  whom  one 
does  tell  the  truth,  my  dear.  I  think  you  have  been 
very  near  the  border,  and  would  perhaps  have  gone 
over  altogether  if  you  had  not  been  rather  saner 
than  most  people  to  start  with ;  but  I  am  quite  sure 
that  whatever  danger  there  has  been  is  past.  You 
will  never  see  the  films  again ;  no  one  does  that  has 
once  been  able  to  speak  of  them.  And  now  I  want 
you  to  fix  your  mind  on  your  work,  and  think  of 
nothing  else.  We  have  got  to  pull  this  woman 
through,  and  it  won't  be  easy." 

Of  the  homicidal  impulse  he  said  nothing;  he 
knew  that  in  a  few  months  she  would  forget  it  had 
ever  tormented  her,  or  would  remember  it  only  as 
one  cured  of  a  fever  remembers  afterwards  the  fan- 
tastic images  of  his  delirium. 


270  OLIVE    LATHAM 

When  the  woman  was  out  of  danger,  he  wanted 
a  child  nursed  through  measles.  Another  with  hip- 
disease  followed,  then  an  accident  at  a  Silvertown 
sugar  refinery.  His  patients  were  all  destitute  aliens 
in  the  very  poor  foreign  quarter:  Ghetto  Jews, 
slaving  in  the  sweating-den  of  some  slop  tailor,  or 
Polish  and  Lithuanian  peasants  driven  from  their 
homes  by  economic  pressure  or  religious  persecution. 

"  But  how  do  you  come  to  be  practising  in  Lon- 
don ?"  she  asked  him  one  day.  ''  I  thought  you  had 
come  over  only  for  a  few  weeks." 

"  I'm  not  practising ;  I'm  in  London  on  account 
of  other  work ;  and  as  these  people  know  I  have  been 
a  doctor,  they  come  to  me  just  in  a  casual  way  when 
they  want  help." 

"What  other  work?" 

"  I  have  undertaken  the  editorship  of  a  Polish 
periodical  that  comes  out  here  and  is  smuggled 
across.  It  can't  be  printed  in  the  country,  you  see, 
because  of  the  Russian  censorship." 

"  Then  you  are  settled  here,  and  not  going  back 
for  some  time?" 

"  I  can't  go  back." 

Something  in  the  tone  of  his  voice  made  her  turn 
quickly. 

"  Do  you  mean  .  .  .  you  can  never  go  back  ? 
Are  you  a  refugee  now  ?" 


OLIVE    LATHAM  271 

He  looked  away,  with  a  set  face. 

"  It  had  to  come  sooner  or  later.  I  was  lucky  to 
be  able  to  hold  out  so  long." 

'' Karol,"  she  said  at  last;  "I  wish  you  would 
tell  me  a  little  more.  You  see,  I  have  nothing  left 
in  the  world  that  is  real  to  me,  except  any  .  .  . 
work  or  friends  that  Volodya  cared  about,  and  I 
seem  to  live  alone  in  the  dark,  always  alone  in  the 
dark.  I  think,  perhaps,  I  shouldn't  be  so  frightened 
if  you  didn't  shut  me  out  quite  so  much  from  all 
your  work.  I  don't  want  to  know  any  secrets,  but  I 
wish  I  understood  better  what  it  is  you  are  trying 
to  do." 

He  was  still  looking  out  of  the  window.  Presently 
he  turned  round. 

"  I  wonder  if  you'd  care  to  help  me  a  bit?  I  have 
more  work  than  I  can  get  through,  and  someone 
that  would  lend  me  a  hand  with  proofs  and  look  up 
things  in  the  British  Museum  reading-room  would 
be  an  enormous  help.     I  have  .  .  ." 

He  came  to  a  stop,  and  looked  out  of  the  window 
again. 

"  I  have  some  difficulty  in  getting  about — walking 
and  so  on." 

She  was  puzzled;  Karol  had  always  seemed  to 
her  one  of  the  most  active  men  she  knew. 

''  I  will  do  anything  I  can,"  she  said  doubtfully; 
"  but  how  did  you  .  .  ." 


272  OLIVE    LATHAM 

"  Get  into  trouble  ?  It's  this  way.  Ever  since 
I  was  amnestied  I  have  been  one  of  the  organizers 
of  the  PoHsh  industrial  movement.  The  only  way 
to  do  work  of  that  sort  without  getting  arrested 
is  to  make  the  Russians  believe  one  has  given  up 
all  interest  in  public  matters;  then  they  leave  off 
watching,  and  one  can  do  anything.  That's  how 
I  came  to  be  allowed  to  live  in  Polish  towns,  and 
even  come  to  St.  Petersburg  once  in  a  way.  Of 
course  I  never  frequented  any  suspected  persons 
there,  except  Volodya.  The  police  were  quite  con- 
vinced Pd  had  enough  of  it,  and  settled  down  into 
a  harmless  provincial  with  a  few  mild  scientific 
hobbies.  The  governor  of  Wilno  told  me  one  day 
he  had  felt  sure  Akatui  would  cure  me." 

"  And  now  they  have  found  out  ?" 

''  Yes,  I  had  to  bolt  this  spring ;  the  game  was  up. 
So  now  I  have  undertaken  to  represent  the  party 
here;  edit  the  paper,  and  be  responsible  for  any  of 
our  folk  that  come  over,  and  so  on.  We  have  a 
working-men's  club,  and  a  school  and  free  library. 
There's  a  little  colony  of  educated  young  men  work- 
ing with  me :  students  from  Polish  universities 
mostly;  and  there  are  two  or  three  professional 
men  settled  in  London  who  give  what  help  they  can : 
a  retired  barrister  from  Warsaw,  and  others.  Fll 
introduce  them  to  you,  and  you  get  an  idea  of  the 


OLIVE    LATHAM  273 

nature  of  the  work,  and  see  whether  you  care  to 
help.    If  so,  you'll  have  to  learn  the  language." 

"  What  did  you  mean  about  a  difficulty  in  walk- 
ing?" 

"  Oh,  just  a  little  stiffness.  It's  inconvenient 
when  one  has  so  much  to  do.  Is  it  to-morrow  your 
father  is  coming  to  town?" 

The  stipulated  three  months  were  over,  and  Mr. 
Latham  had  written  a  few  lines  to  say  that  he  was 
coming  to  London  alone.  He  had  found  it  a  hard 
matter  to  be  patient  under  the  suspense  of  these 
thirteen  weeks,  but  the  change  they  had  wrought  in 
Olive's  face  convinced  him,  when  he  saw  her,  that 
the  right  course  had  been  taken.  Yet  she  wore  now, 
perhaps,  a  more  tragic  expression  than  in  the  worst 
days  last  year.  There  were  lines  grievous  to  see  in 
a  face  so  young,  but  the  hunted  look  was  gone. 

''  Be  patient  a  little  longer,"  Karol  said.  "  She 
is  getting  well  faster  than  I  had  hoped,  but  it  will 
take  some  months  yet  to  restore  her  balance." 

Mr.  Latham  sighed. 

''  God  knows  I'm  not  impatient.  It's  plain  enough 
that  you  can  help  and  I  can't;  the  least  I  can  do  is 
to  trust  you.  If  only  she  were  a  little  less  unhappy 
.  .  .  but  she  looks  more  utterly  wretched  now  than 
even  last  year." 

"  That  can't  be  helped.  Coming  back  to  life  after 
i8 


274  OLIVE    LATHAM 

a  frostbite  is  not  a  pleasant  process.  But  she's  stick- 
ing to  her  work,  and  some  day  she'll  begin  to  find 
an  interest  in  it." 

He  said  nothing  of  how  far  off  that  day  seemed 
to  him.  It  was  evident  that  the  girl  herself  was 
trying  bravely  to  keep  her  thoughts  fixed  on  her 
work.  What  she  had  undertaken  to  do  she  did  as  a 
faithful  drudge,  with  stubborn  perseverance,  with 
the  exercise  of  all  her  strength,  but  with  no  hope 
in  doing  it,  no  joy  in  it  when  it  was  done.  She 
worked  as  a  cab-horse  works,  looking  only  at  the 
strip  of  road  before  her,  grateful  for  a  wise  hand  on 
the  rein  and  for  the  merciful  blinkers  that  shut  out 
the  ghost  of  fear  lurking  by  the  wayside  in  the  dark. 

For  anything  beyond  each  day's  burdens,  its 
duties,  its  weariness,  its  crushing  weight  of  misery, 
she  had  no  strength,  no  nerves  to  spare.  So,  month 
after  month,  she  lived,  as  a  blind  creature,  in  daily 
contact  with  Karol;  worked  with  him,  read  with 
him,  nursed  his  patients,  corrected  his  proofs;  and 
never  saw  the  shadow  of  death  upon  him. 

"  When  the  paper  is  enlarged  next  year,"  she 
asked  one  day;  "  shall  you  go  on  being  editor?" 

"  If  I  am  still  here." 

"  But  I  thought  you  were  going  to  live  here  per- 
manently." 

"  My  plans  are  never  settled  long  beforehand." 


OLIVE    LATHAM  275 

Mr.  Latham  now  came  up  every  month  to  see  her, 
and  at  New  Year  she  went  home  for  a  hoUday.  She 
was  quite  well  now,  Karol  said,  and  to  see  her  friends 
could  no  longer  do  her  any  harm.  Whether  her 
visit  would  be  much  joy  to  them  was  another  matter. 

The  mother's  feeling  was  certainly  one  of  relief. 
The  unfriendly  changeling  whose  very  aspect  had 
terrified  her  was  gone,  and  the  real  Olive  had  taken 
her  place;  too  old  for  her  years,  and  perhaps  not 
looking  altogether  happy,  but  still  the  real,  gentle, 
capable,  unselfish  Olive.  When  she  told  her  husband 
this  he  buried  himself  in  his  book  without  answering. 
Jenny  puckered  her  pretty  forehead  thoughtfully. 

"  I'm  not  so  sure,  mother ;  there's  no  spring  left 
in  her.  I  suppose  it's  possible  for  people  to  be  un- 
selfish because  there's  nothing  in  the  world  they 
care  about  enough  to  make  a  fuss  over  it." 

Mr.  Latham  raised  his  eyebrows  behind  his  book. 
Certainly  Jenny  was  growing  up. 

"No  doubt,"  he  said  afterwards  to  Dick;  "we 
ought  to  feel  thankful.  The  girl  is  sound  again  in 
body  and  mind,  doing  good  work  and  filling  a  useful 
place  in  the  world.  But  this  thing  has  killed  her 
youth  in  her.  She's  a  middle-aged  woman,  and  she's 
not  twenty-nine." 

Dick  was  the  only  person,  except  Karol,  to  whom 
he  ever  talked  of  Olive.    Since  he  had  known  of  the 


276  OLIVE    LATHAM 

curate's  love  for  her  it  seemed  to  him  that  he  had  a 
son.  Of  late  he  had  seen  quite  plainly  that  this  love 
was  slowly  passing  into  a  tender  and  sorrowful 
memory  of  what  she  had  once  been,  but  that  he 
regarded  as  a  natural  and  inevitable  process  which 
could  make  no  difference  in  his  paternal  feeling 
towards  Dick.  Olive,  he  thought,  would  belong  for 
the  rest  of  her  life  to  a  world  of  which  Dick  could 
know  nothing  beyond  the  mark  that  it  had  set  on 
her  as  on  Karol.  Even  her  father  must  seem  to  her 
a  gray-haired  child. 

After  a  short  holiday  she  went  back  to  her  work 
in  London.  When  her  father,  driving  her  to  the 
station,  asked  how  soon  he  might  expect  her  home 
again  for  a  week-end,  she  hesitated,  with  downcast 
eyes. 

"  It  seems  ungrateful  when  everyone  has  been 
so  kind  to  me;  but  I  think  I  had  better  not  come 
home  often." 

"  My  darling,  if  it  hurts  you  .  .  ." 

"  No,  not  that ;  it  was  of  mother  I  was  thinking. 
She  will  be  happier  for  seeing  little  of  me." 

"  I  am  sure  your  visit  has  been  an  unmixed  delight 
to  her." 

"  Oh  yes ;  but  if  she  were  to  see  me  often  she 
would  be  disappointed." 

"  You  think  she  would  see  the  real  you,  and  find 


OLIVE    LATHAM  277 

how  little  it  belongs  to  her?  There  is  no  fear  of 
that,  my  dear;  the  real  you  is  not  so  easy  to  get  at." 

"  She  wouldn't  see  me,  but  she  would  see  some- 
thing she  couldn't  understand,  and  it  would  worry 
her.  She  and  Jenny  are  so  happy  together ;  I  should 
only  spoil  it  if  I  came  in.  To  have  lived  through 
some  things  is  like  having  a  taint  of  black  blood ;  it 
cuts  you  ofif  from  other  people." 

"  From  all  other  people?" 

''  Not  from  you,  daddy." 

"  That  is  well  for  me.  I,  you  see,  belong  in 
neither  world." 

''  Daddy  .  .  ."  She  slipped  her  fingers  into  his. 
The  corners  of  his  mouth  twitched  as  he  looked 
down  at  the  hand ;  he  was  thinking  how  far  she  had 
travelled  since  the  day  when  she  put  the  pepsine 
tablets  by  his  plate. 

"  Have  you  never  realized,  my  child,  that  you  are 
the  daughter  of  a  man  who  is  a  failure,  and  who  has 
brains  enough  to  know  it?  It  is  not  having  lived 
through  things  that  cuts  people  off  from  their  kind; 
it's  having  failed  to  live  through  them.  Even  I 
once  meant  to  use  my  life,  not  waste  it." 

"  And  then  .  .  .    ?" 

"  Then  I  married  your  mother." 

After  a  moment  he  went  on : 

"  So,  you  see,  you  and  your  friends  who  are  doing 


278  OLIVE    LATHAM 

the  world's  real  work  stand  to  me  not  only  for  all  I 
love  best,  but  also  for  what  I  might  have  been. 
There's  not  much  to  show  for  it,  nowadays;  but  I 
too  was  born  in  Arcady." 

He  stopped,  seeing  tears  in  her  eyes.  She  brushed 
them  away  quickly. 

".You  needn't  envy  us,  dear  daddy;  Arcady,  in 
these  latter  times,  is  not  the  cheerfulest  dwelling- 
place.  It's  all  workshops  and  graveyards  now,  and 
the  rain  it  raineth  every  day." 


CHAPTER    V 

Olive  and  her  father  had  enough  in  common  for 
each  to  feel  sure  that  the  other  would  never  refer  to 
their  talk  on  the  road  to  Heathbridge  Station.  The 
fact  of  its  having  been,  and  still  more  the  certainty 
that  it  would  not  be  repeated,  made  them  even  closer 
friends  than  before. 

He  now  came  up  to  London  as  often  as  possible ; 
and  whenever  she  could  spare  the  time  they  would 
go  for  long  walks  together,  or  wander  about 
museums  and  picture-galleries,  talking  either  not  at 
all  or  of  everything  but  of  what  was  real  to  them. 
He  knew,  without  any  telling,  that  these  afternoons 
with  him  were  the  only  gleams  of  sunshine  in  her 
life. 

Karol  had  not  even  such  communion  with  his  kind. 
He  had  shut  himself  up  in  iron  silence,  and  waited 
alone  for  the  stealthy  coming  of  doom.  Sometimes, 
when  he  failed  to  notice  that  Olive  was  looking  at 
him,  the  compressed  lines  about  his  mouth  would 
make  her  sick  with  pity. 

''  I  never  knew  before  what  exile  means,"  she 
said  once  to  Mr.  Latham.  "  The  country  has  been 
father  and  mother  and  wife  and  child  to  him;  and 
he  can  never  go  back." 

279 


280  OLIVE    LATHAM 

That  any  other  grief  weighed  upon  him  she  had 
not  guessed;  and  of  this  one  she  dared  not  speak 
to  him. 

The  spring  came,  late  and  cold  in  the  gray  streets ; 
then  a  wet,  bleak,  cheerless  summer.  A  year  had 
now  passed  since  she  began  working  with  him;  a 
sample,  she  thought,  of  many  years  to  come.  They 
would  go  on  this  way,  no  doubt,  side  by  side  to  their 
lives'  ends,  fellow-drudges  in  a  world  where  no  sun 
shines,  where  no  birds  ever  sing. 

One  rainy  day  in  autumn  he  walked  with  her  from 
the  British  Museum  to  her  lodgings.  They  had 
spent  the  afternoon  in  the  reading-room,  collecting 
data  for  an  article  which  he  was  writing  on  the 
hygienic  statistics  of  Polish  factory  towns.  Cross- 
ing Oxford  Street  he  stumbled,  lurched  forward  in 
a  helpless  way,  and  fell  heavily  to  the  ground.  Cab- 
men looked  down  from  their  boxes,  grinning; 
scornful  comments  passed  between  two  bedraggled 
flower-girls. 

"Are  you  hurt?"  Olive  asked  as  he  slowly  and 
clumsily  picked  himself  up. 

He  stooped,  with  his  face  away  from  her,  and 
wiped  the  mud  from  his  clothes. 

"Not  at  all,  thanks;  I  trod  on  something 
slippery." 

She  glanced  round;  there  was  nothing  on  the 
pavement. 


OLIVE    LATHAM  281 

"  It  must  have  been  a  nail  in  your  shoe,"  she 
began ;   and  broke  off,  looking  at  him. 

"  Karol,  you  have  hurt  yourself ;  I'm  sure 
of  it." 

"  Well,  just  a  little;   it  will  pass  off  in  a  minute." 

He  remained  very  pale  for  some  time,  but  was 
quite  self-possessed,  and  on  arriving  at  her  lodgings 
began  at  once  to  arrange  in  chronological  order  the 
data  which  they  had  collected.  Olive  lighted  the  fire, 
as  the  evening  was  chilly,  then  settled  to  her  proof- 
reading; and  till  supper  was  brought  in  neither 
moved.  When  she  looked  round  to  call  him  to  the 
table,  she  noticed  with  surprise  that  he  was  not 
working.  The  expression  of  his  face  arrested  her 
attention;  she  stood  watching  him  for  some  time. 
Then  she  gathered  up  her  courage  and  spoke. 

"  Karol,  mayn't  I  know  what  the  trouble  is  ?" 

He  raised  his  head  quickly. 

"  Oh,  there's  no  trouble;  I  was  just  thinking  out 
some  business  arrangements.  By  the  way,  if  Mar- 
cinkiewicz  should  take  over  the  editorship  of  the 
paper,  would  you  go  on  working  with  him?" 

"  You  are  giving  it  up?" 

"  Very  soon,  I  think.  Marcinkiewicz  has  had 
some  training ;  he  will  be  able  to  manage  quite  well. 
The  fact  is,  I  have  to  go  away  as  soon  as  the  party 
can  send  over  a  man  to  take  my  place." 


282  OLIVE    LATHAM 

"To  go  away  for  a  short  time,  do  you  mean,  or 
altogether?" 

"  Altogether.  Of  course,  my  taking  on  the  work 
here  in  London  was  only  a  temporary  thing  from 
the  beginning." 

Her  own  voice  sounded  to  her  as  if  it  came  from 
very  far  away. 

"  Do  you  know  how  soon  you  will  go  ?" 

"  I  have  not  decided  yet ;  in  a  month  or  two, 
perhaps." 

He  rose,  with  a  lazy  movement  of  the  shoulders. 
Olive  stood  still,  her  breath  coming  fast,  the  sound 
of  her  pulses  beating  in  her  ears.  That  he  should 
tell  her  such  news  so  lightly  seemed  to  her  like  a 
blow  across  the  cheek. 

"  I  didn't  really  expect  to  be  here  so  long,"  he 
went  on.  "  I  think  the  work  is  licked  a  bit  into 
shape  now.  What  I'm  particularly  glad  of  is  that 
you  have  got  so  thoroughly  into  the  way  of  it  before 
I  go;  you'll  be  able  to  hold  your  own.  It's  only 
the  beginning  that's  so  difficult." 

"  And  the  .  .  .  getting  accustomed  to  things  ? 
Yes,  you  told  me  that  in  St.  Petersburg.  Do  you 
remember  ?  You  gave  me  two  or  three  years.  Well, 
I've  had  two  and  a  half.  If  you're  going  away 
.  .  .  altogether,  I  should  like  to  tell  you  before  you 
go  that  getting  accustomed  hasn't  helped  me  much." 


OLIVE    LATHAM  283 

She  began  putting  the  tea  into  the  pot.  Karol 
waited  till  she  should  speak  again;  he  was  never 
in  a  hurry  for  explanations. 

"  I  am  exacting,  perhaps,"  she  went  on,  laying 
down  the  spoon.  "  But,  after  all,  this  is  the  only 
life  we  can  be  certain  of  having,  and  I  resent  its 
being  taken  away  without  fair  value  given  in  ex- 
change. Mind,  I'm  quite  content  to  have  anything 
sacrificed  if  the  thing  gained  is  worth  it,  but  I  want 
to  see  the  use  of  it  all ;  I  want  to  see :  What  profit 
is  there  in  my  blood?" 

Her  hand  began  to  shake  a  little  on  the  edge  of 
the  tray. 

''  If  I  could  be  certain  that  Volodya  himself 
believed  the  thing  he  died  for  would  succeed  in  the 
end  .  .  .  No,  I  don't  want  to  talk  about  that.  Let 
us  keep  to  ourselves  and  our  work ;  that's  a  practical 
matter.  Here  are  we,  after  having  come  through  a 
few  things  which  we  agree  to  regard  as  .  .  .  train- 
ing, getting  out  a  little  rag  of  a  labour  paper. 
Oh,  I  know  it's  an  excellent  little  paper;  there's 
good  work  put  into  it,  and  its  influence  is  most 
admirable,  what  there  is  of  it.  But  is  it  worth 
the  cost?" 

"  Look  here,"  Karol  said,  sitting  down  astride  of 
a  chair  with  his  arms  along  the  back  of  it.  ''  You 
know  what  Epictetus  says  about  lettuces :    they're 


284  OLIVE    LATHAM 

to  be  bought  for  a  penny;  and  if  you  want  your 
lettuce  you  have  to  pay  your  penny.  What  people 
never  seem  to  understand  is  that  in  a  bad  season 
lettuces  may  go  up  to  three-halfpence,  and  be  small 
at  that.  It's  some  ethical  maggot  about  abstract 
justice  that  is  worrying  your  head;  you  want  the 
world  to  get  its  salvation  at  a  fair  price.  It  can't; 
it  must  pay  the  market  rate  of  the  particular  place 
and  time.    I  have  not  .  .  ." 

He  broke  off;  and  finished  the  sentence,  after  a 
moment,  in  a  deeper  voice : 

"  I  have  not  denied  that  prices  run  a  bit  high." 

She  dropped  her  hands  with  a  gesture  of  hopeless 
discouragement. 

"  Oh,  what  does  that  matter  ?  Do  you  think  I 
grumble  at  the  price  ?  All  you  are  telling  me  is  that 
we  have  to  render  unto  Caesar  the  things  that  are 
Caesar's.  I  make  no  fuss  about  the  penny,  or  the 
three-halfpence,  or  the  particular  image  stamped  on 
the  coin.  But  oh,  there  are  such  a  lot  of  little 
Caesars,  and  you  have  to  coin  your  heart  into  such 
a  lot  of  little  pennies !" 

"  Yes  ?"  he  said,  rising  and  resting  one  arm  on 
the  mantelpiece.  ''  Go  on.  Is  there  much  more  to 
come?" 

"  That  is  the  point  I  am  debating.  Is  there  any- 
thing more  to  come?" 


OLIVE    LATHAM  285 

He  was  silent. 

*'  Take  an  instance,"  she  began  again,  after  a 
long  pause.  "  Well,  yourself :  You  remember  Aka- 
tui.  .  .  ." 

The  hard  lines  deepened  round  his  mouth. 

"  No,"  he  said.  "  I  never  remember  things  of 
that  sort,  except  sometimes  by  accident." 

"  All  the  same,  sometimes  by  accident  you  do 
remember.    Akatui,  I  take  it,  is  your  penny." 

He  answered  with  a  slow  drawing-in  of  his 
breath : 

"  A  little  bit  of  it." 

"  And  where  is  your  lettuce?" 

He  put  up  a  hand  to  screen  his  eyes  from  the 
fire. 

"  You  see,"  Olive  went  on  in  her  meditative, 
implacable  voice;  "if  one  is  going  to  die,  or  .  .  . 
anything  equivalent,  one  wants  to  know :  what  for  ? 
It's  a  question  of  the  relative  values  of  things. 
What  constitutes  an  adequate  exchange  for  all  the 
life  and  happiness  of  any  man  or  woman?  Take 
the  case  of  those  peasants  in  Moscow  that  were 
crushed  to  death  the  other  day  scrambling  for  coro- 
nation gifts.  They  died  for  a  tainted  sausage  and 
a  tin  mug  with  the  Emperor's  head  on  it;  then 
there  was  a  Court  ball,  and  he  and  his  wife  danced. 
Well,  good  luck  to  their  dancing!     Perhaps  that's 


286  OLIVE    LATHAM 

the  rate  at  which  Russian  peasants  value  their  lives. 
Are  you  prepared  to  say  that  the  generations  to  come 
will  think  we  valued  ours  much  higher?" 

Karol  began  to  pace  the  room  with  his  hands 
behind  his  back,  wondering,  in  a  cool,  dispassionate 
way,  how  long  this  strain  was  likely  to  go  on,  and 
whether  he  would  be  able  to  hold  out  if  it  lasted 
for  another  five  minutes.  A  little  detached  memory 
popped  up  quaintly  out  of  the  far-off  past.  During 
his  first  imprisonment,  entering  the  interrogation- 
room  in  his  turn,  he  had  seen  the  young  man  coming 
out  of  it  drop  on  the  floor  in  a  hysterical  fit,  and  had 
heard  one  gendarme  say  to  another : 

^'  That  means  the  General  is  cross-examining 
to-day!" 

He  had  asked  himself,  at  the  time,  whether  any 
danger  of  such  a  breakdown  threatened  himself. 
Nowadays,  fortunately,  he  could  feel  safe;  his 
nerves  were  trained. 

A  harder  ring  came  into  Olive's  voice. 

"  As  you  say  '  altogether,'  I  suppose  it  is  likely 
that  we  may  not  meet  again?" 

''  Very  likely." 

"Then  speak  the  truth  to  me  for  once,  before 
you  leave  me  utterly  alone.  Are  you,  individually, 
satisfied  with  what  you  have  got  in  exchange  for 
your  penny?" 


OLIVE    LATHAM  287 

Karol  turned  and  faced  her;  his  hps  had  gone 
quite  white. 

''  I  think/'  he  said,  "  that  it  is  second-rate,  and  a 
bit  stale,  and  certainly  dear  at  the  price.  But  it's  the 
best  I  can  get.  If  you  had  asked  those  peasants 
in  Moscow,  they  would  have  told  you  that  sausages, 
even  tainted  ones,  are  not  to  be  had  every  day." 

She  was  as  pale  as  he  was. 

"  I  see,"  she  said  at  last,  under  her  breath. 

It  seemed  to  him  that  he  had  been  stripped  bare 
of  all  his  personal  reserve.  He  plunged  at  once  up 
to  the  ears  into  statistics;  Karol  was  not  wont  to 
go  naked,  even  under  the  eyes  of  his  best  beloved. 

^'  Then,  during  the  last  three  years,  the  death- 
rate  of  Lodz  .  .  ." 

She  stooped  to  lift  the  kettle  off  the  fire. 

"  The  death-rate  of  Lodz  is  in  my  notes  of  yes- 
terday. Just  let  me  make  the  tea,  and  I'll  fetch 
them." 

The  next  day  she  and  Karol  met  only  in  the 
presence  of  others,  and  the  day  afterwards  her  father 
came  up  to  see  her  and  begged  her  to  go  back  with 
him  to  Heathbridge  for  the  week-end.  Returning 
to  town  on  Monday  morning,  she  went  to  the  office 
of  the  periodical  to  ask  instructions  for  the  day's 
work.  Marcinkiewicz,  the  sub-editor,  met  her  with 
a  face  eloquent  of  trouble.     He  said  nothing,  how- 


288  OLIVE    LATHAM 

ever;  and,  as  there  were  strangers  in  the  room,  she 
merely  asked : 

"Is  Dr.  Slavinski  here  to-day?" 

"  He  has  had  to  go  abroad  on  business.  He  has 
left  a  Hst  of  things  he  wants  looked  up,  and  asked 
me  to  tell  you  that  he  expects  to  be  back  in  a  fort- 
night." 

Karol  was  in  the  habit  of  taking  unexpected  jour- 
neys ;  and  Olive,  accustomed  to  regard  his  frequent 
disappearances  as  incidental  to  his  work,  took  the  list 
and  settled  to  her  task  without  comment.  The  evi- 
dent distress  of  the  sub-editor  suggested  to  her  that 
the  journey  might  be  in  consequence  of  bad  news. 

"  He's  been  sent  for  to  France  or  Switzerland  to 
put  something  right,"  she  thought. 

Ten  days  later,  bringing  her  finished  work  to  the 
office,  she  found  Marcinkiewicz  reading  a  letter 
aloud  to  a  member  of  the  party  who  had  lately 
arrived  in  England. 

*'  Ah,  Miss  Latham ;  I  was  just  going  to  send 
round  to  you.  There's  a  letter  from  Slavinski,  with 
messages  for  you." 

"Will  he  be  back  soon?" 

"  I'm  afraid  not;  he's  wounded." 

"Wounded?" 

"  Yes,  he  had  to  go  on  to  Russian  territory ;  dis- 
guised, of  course.    Getting  back  across  the  frontier 


OLIVE    LATHAM  289 

into  Austria,  he  was  shot  at  and  hit  by  the  soldiers 
patrolling  the  Russian  side.  He  got  away,  but  is 
laid  up  now,  and  can't  travel." 

''  He  was  crossing  the  frontier  by  night,  with  a 
smuggler,  I  suppose?" 

"  Yes,  one  of  the  Jews  that  take  people  across  at 
so  much  a  head." 

''  Is  he  in  Austria  now  ?" 

''  In  Galicia,  at  Brody.    I'll  read  you  what  he  says : 

'' '  Everything  is  satisfactorily  settled.  .  .  .'  No, 
those  are  all  business  details ;  here  it  is :  '  The  patrol 
caught  sight  of  us  as  we  reached  the  Austrian  side 
of  the  ditch,  and  fired  across.  Only  one  shot  struck 
me ;  but  it  has  splintered  the  right  thigh-bone.  My 
smuggler  behaved  very  well;  he- found  friends  in 
the  Austrian  patrol  and  persuaded  them  not  to  see 
me;  then,  when  the  alarm  had  quieted  down,  he 
fetched  a  cart  from  somewhere  and  managed  to 
drag  me  into  it.  He  brought  me  here  safely;  but 
I  have  not  been  able  to  travel  any  further.  Will 
you  ask  Miss  Latham  to  be  sure  that  the  child  in 
Union  Street  with  the  sequelae  of  diphtheria  has  its 
throat  gargled  regularly  twice  a  day;  the  mother 
is  a  bit  careless.  The  woman  at  No.  15  had  better 
go  as  an  out-patient  to  the  London  Hospital.  If 
an  answer  has  come  about  the  deaf  and  dumb  boy 
in  the  Whitechapel  Road  .  .  .'     I  can't  make  out 

19 


290  OLIVE    LATHAM 

the  next  bit,  the  handwriting  is  so  shaky.    Bielinski, 
see  if  you  can  read  it." 

While  they  were  trying  to  decipher  the  letter  a 
telegram  came.  Marcinkiewicz  gave  a  quick  little 
cry  when  he  read  it. 

"  What  is  wrong?"  his  friend  asked. 

He  passed  the  telegram  to  Olive;  it  was  from 
Brody. 

"Slavinski  very  ill.     Wound   poisoned.      Can 
anyone  come? 

She  handed  it  back  without  a  word. 

"  '  Wound  poisoned,'  "  Bielinski  repeated.  "  That 
probably  means  he'll  die.  And  just  for  a  stupid 
frontier  patrol  firing  at  random  in  the  dark!  It's 
hard  luck." 

"  Jesus !  Mary !"  Marcinkiewicz  burst  out.  "  You 
wouldn't  have  him  live,  would  you?  Surely,  if  he 
can  die  comfortably  of  a  gun-shot  wound,  it's  his 
cheapest  way  out." 

Olive  raised  her  head  abruptly,  and  sat  looking  at 
him.    She  had  begun  to  tremble. 

"  What  do  you  mean  ?"  Bielinski  asked. 

"  Didn't  you  know  he  has  had  all  the  warnings  of 
spinal  paralysis?  Why,  yes,  you  must  have  noticed 
the  way  he  walks  lately.  It's  quite  a  hopeless  case ; 
his  only  chance  is  to  get  killed  in  time  by  some  happy 
accident." 


OLIVE    LATHAM  291 

Bielinski  drew  back. 

"  Spinal  .  .  .  What,  locomotor  ataxy  do  you 
mean  ?" 

''  No  such  luck !  That  at  least  may  kill  you, 
sooner  or  later.  This  is  the  sort  of  deliberately 
fiendish  thing  that  will  let  you  go  on  living  till  you're 
ninety,  just  lying  helpless  year  after  year,  and  turn- 
ing to  stone  by  inches." 

He  crumpled  the  telegram  passionately  in  his 
hand. 

"  Mother  of  God !  Think  of  it !  and  of  all  men 
on  earth  Slavinski,  that  has  worked  like  any  cart- 
horse ever  since  he  was  a  boy  at  college  .  .  .  That's 
what  has  done  it,  they  say." 

''What,  overwork?" 

''  A  general  accumulation  of  little  bills;  cold,  and 
hunger,  and  fatigue.  What  can  you  expect?  The 
man  has  been  through  Akatui;  no  one  comes  out 
of  that  without  something.  When  it  isn't  lung 
disease,  or  blindness,  or  epilepsy,  or  some  form  of 
madness,  it's  as  likely  as  not  to  be  one  of  these  spinal 
things.  And  then,  you  know,  he  was  there  through 
the  big  famine-strike;  that's  enough  to  smash  any 
constitution  to  pieces." 

"  But  the  famine-strike  was  ten  years  ago.  How 
long  has  this  been  threatening?" 

"  It  has  come  on  very  slowly.     He  says  he  first 


292  OLIVE    LATHAM 

noticed  a  little  stiffness  of  the  ankle-joint  while  he 
was  out  there;  but  it  was  so  slight  that  he  thought 
nothing  of  it.  He  doesn't  seem  to  have  guessed 
that  anything  was  wrong  till  two  or  three  years  ago 
— no,  not  the  winter  before  last,  the  winter  before 
that.  It  was  that  time  he  went  to  St.  Petersburg 
in  such  a  hurry  because  they'd  dated  his  passport 
wrong;  don't  you  remember?  He  had  found  him- 
self stumbling  in  going  upstairs,  and  began  to  sus- 
pect something;  so  he  went  and  consulted  a  doctor 
there.  But  Miss  Latham  can  tell  you  better  than  I 
can;   she  was  living  there  at  the  time." 

Both  men  turned  to  Olive.  She  had  not  moved 
a  muscle.  When  she  spoke,  her  voice  was  quite 
mechanical  and  even. 

''  I  knew  nothing  about  it.  I  never  heard  till 
now." 

The  sub-editor  bit  his  lip. 

''  I'm  sorry,  Miss  Latham.  It  was  tactless  of  me; 
but  I  felt  sure  he  had  told  you  long  ago." 

"  He  never  was  a  communicative  person,"  Bie- 
linski  put  in. 

"  That  is  true.  He  told  me  simply  as  a  matter  of 
business,  in  case  I  should  have  to  replace  him  in  an 
emergency  at  any  time.  I  asked  him  then  whether 
I  could  do  anything  for  him  in  the  way  of  seeing  to 
personal  matters,  and  he  said :  '  Thanks,  my  arrange- 


OLIVE    LATHAM  293 

ments  are  made.'  I  don't  know  why  I  took  for 
granted  he  must  have  given  his  instructions  to  Miss 
Latham." 

"  How  long  ago  did  he  tell  you?" 

*'  When  he  came  to  England  in  May  last  year. 
The  St.  Petersburg  doctor,  you  understand,  had  only 
told  him  there  was  a  danger  of  some  such  misfor- 
tune. Then  he  found  himself  getting  worse;  so 
directly  he  arrived  he  went  to  a  man  here  who  is 
considered  a  big  authority  on  spinal  things,  and  was 
told  there  is  no  hope.  At  that,  of  course,  he  notified 
the  committee  officially,  and  undertook  the  work 
here  for  as  long  as  it  should  be  possible.  Last 
Saturday  week  he  told  me  that  he  had  fallen  down 
in  the  street,  and  must  make  arrangements  at  once 
for  handing  over  his  work.  That's  what  he  went 
into  Russia  for,  to  see  the  new  man  who  is  to 
take  his  place.  There,  it  isn't  a  thing  that  will 
bear  much  talking  about.  Give  me  a  smoke, 
Bielinski." 

His  foot  tapped  on  the  floor  as  he  rolled  a  ciga- 
rette. He  was  a  man  of  keen  imagination,  and  Karol 
was  dear  to  him. 

After  a  moment  he  smoothed  out  the  crumpled 
telegram. 

''  Whom  shall  we  send  over  ?  It  says :  '  Can  any- 
one come?'  " 


294  OLIVE    LATHAM 

Olive  rose;  she  had  sat  perfectly  still  since  she 
heard  the  truth. 

''  I  am  going,  of  course.  I  shall  start  this  even- 
ing. Will  you  take  me  a  ticket  while  I  put  up  my 
things  ?" 

"But  .  .  ."  Marcinkiewicz  began;  then  checked 
himself  and  said  gravely :  "  Yes,  you  are  certainly 
the  right  person." 

She  went  back  to  her  lodgings,  wrote  a  few  lines 
to  her  father,  changed  a  cheque,  packed  a  bag,  and 
caught  the  boat-train.  The  only  feeling  in  her  mind 
was  a  dull  content  at  having  something  practical  to 
do  at  once  and  no  time  to  think.  Then  followed  two 
nights  and  days  of  continuous  travelling.  Sitting  in 
her  corner  of  the  railway-carriage,  wide-eyed  while 
her  fellow-passengers  dozed,  she  repeated  to  herself 
again  and  again,  with  ever  keener  bitterness :  "  And 
he  never  told  me — he  never  told  me." 

It  was  late  afternoon  when  she  reached  Brody,  a 
small  frontier  town  with  a  mixed  population  of 
Poles,  Ruthenians,  Jews,  and  a  few  Germans.  The 
narrow  streets  looked  cheerless  and  poverty-stricken 
under  a  sky  heavy  with  rain-clouds.  A  figure  in  a 
greasy  gaberdine  shambled  up  to  her  at  the  station 
gates,  thrusting  a  bestial  face  over  her  shoulder  as 
she  stepped  into  a  cab. 

"  Shall  I  change  the  lady's  money,  or  show  her 


OLIVE    LATHAM  295 

round  the  town?  I  can  recommend  a  good 
hotel  ..." 

The  filthy  side-ringlets  had  almost  touched  her 
cheek.  As  she  drove  away,  an  interminable  stream 
of  patter,  villainous  German  with  here  and  there  a 
word  of  broken  French,  pursued  her  faintly  from  the 
distance,  dying  away  in  a  fat,  snarling  whine. 

The  family  whose  hospitality  Karol  had  accepted 
was  of  the  respectable  artizan  class.  Though  Jewish 
by  birth  and  religion,  both  husband  and  wife  were 
devoted  Polish  patriots,  regarded  themselves  as 
Poles,  and,  by  dint  of  heroic  pinching  and  self-denial, 
regularly  contributed  a  share  of  their  scanty  earnings 
to  the  funds  of  the  national  movement.  Karol  was 
personally  a  stranger  to  them;  but  as  a  prominent 
organizer  wounded  in  the  discharge  of  his  duties  he 
was  welcome  to  anything  they  had  to  give. 

This,  however,  was  not  much.  The  house  was,  for 
its  class,  fairly  clean,  but  dark,  noisy,  and  crowded; 
the  host  and  hostess,  with  all  good  intentions,  had 
neither  the  time  nor  the  skill  to  nurse  a  difficult 
surgical  case.  But  the  only  alternative  would  have 
been  the  local  hospital,  which,  for  obvious  reasons, 
it  was  well  to  avoid;  and  Karol  had  gratefully 
accepted  the  kindness  of  the  Jews. 

They  received  Olive  with  effusive  delight. 

"  Khaia !  Khaia !"  the  husband  called  to  his  wife, 


296  OLIVE    LATHAM 

as  the  cab  drove  up.  "  It's  the  nurse  from  London ! 
Run  round  to  the  doctor;  he  said  we  were  to  send 
for  him  at  once." 

They  almost  dragged  her  into  the  house,  talking 
shrilly  together  at  the  tops  of  their  voices  in  a  de- 
based and  incomprehensible  mixture  of  German  and 
Polish;  assuring  her,  with  vehement  gesticulation, 
of  the  anxiety  they  had  felt,  of  their  relief  when  her 
telegram  came.  Neither  appeared  to  feel  any  doubt 
that,  once  she  had  arrived,  the  patient  must  recover. 

''  And  think,  if  he  had  died  in  our  house,  perhaps 
by  our  fault!  We're  fools  at  nursing,  aren't  we, 
Abraham?" 

"  Yes,  and  a  life  so  valuable  to  the  country !  A'ie, 
va'ie,  what  a  loss  it  would  have  been !  Don't  think, 
because  we're  Jews,  we  can't  be  good  patriots;  my 
wife's  brother  Solomon  was  sent  to  Siberia  for 
taking  part  in  a  Polish  demonstration.  We  come 
from  the  Russian  side,  you  see;  and  I,  too,  had  to 
make  my  way  across  the  ditch  before  ..." 

Olive  stopped  the  torrent  as  gently  as  she  could. 

"  You  have  proved  yourselves  good  patriots  by 
being  so  kind  to  Dr.  Slavinski.  May  I  wash  and 
change  before  I  go  into  the  sick-room?" 

The  doctor,  a  serious  young  German  with  hair 
standing  up  like  a  brush,  came  in,  fortunately,  at 
this  moment,  and  Olive  went  upstairs  with  him. 


OLIVE    LATHAM  297 

"  You  must  keep  these  dear  people  away  from  the 
patient,"  he  said,  pausing  in  the  narrow,  ill-smelHng 
passage.  "  They  are  kind,  very  kind ;  they  would 
give  him  anything,  but  they  talk  too  much ;  he  will 
die  of  their  talking." 

"  Do  you  think  him  likely  to  die  ?" 

"  How  should  I  know  ?  If  we  can  have  quiet  and 
get  the  temperature  down,  he  may  live.  But  it  looks 
bad.    He  has  been  delirious  for  three  days." 

''  A  broken  thigh-bone?" 

"  Compound  fracture ;  and  it  is  septic.  He  came 
squeezed  up  in  a  little  cart,  jolted  and  shaken  all  the 
way.    Do  you  speak  Polish  ?" 

"  A  little." 

"  I  don't ;  it  is  difficult.  I  have  only  lately  come 
from  Vienna.  He  talks  nothing  but  Polish  since  the 
fever  began;  I  can't  understand.  There,  do  you 
hear?" 

Karol's  voice  struck  on  her  ears  as  the  door 
opened.  He  was  talking  to  himself,  with  an  arm 
across  his  face.  She  drew  the  arm  down,  and  skil- 
fully shifted  the  pillow  to  ease  his  breathing.  His 
eyes  stared  up  at  her  without  recognition,  and  he 
went  on  muttering  in  Polish.  The  indistinguishable 
phrases  had  a  faint  suggestion  of  some  irregular 
rhythm. 

"Do  you  understand?"  the  doctor  asked.     "He 


298  OLIVE    LATHAM 

says  that  again  and  again,  all  the  time.  What  is 
it?    A  prayer?" 

She  stooped  to  listen. 

"  I  can't  catch  the  words ;  ah,  wait  a  minute." 

^^ ' .  .  .  The  voice  of  the  tombs  lamenting,  as  it 
were  the  ashes  of  the  dead  complaining  against 
God  .  .  .'  " 

The  words  were  familiar  to  her,  but  she  could  not 
remember  where  she  had  heard  them. 

"  ' .  .  .  But  the  angel  .  .  .  the  angel  .  .  .  spread 
her  wings,  and  they  were  still  .  .  .  three  times  the 
graves  began  to  moan  .  .  .'  " 

She  had  been  reading  Polish  literature  with  Mar- 
cinkiewicz,  and  now  remembered  the  compassionate 
angel  in  "  Anhelli." 

"  He  is  repeating  poetry,"  she  said. 

The  doctor  stayed  a  few  minutes  in  the  room, 
giving  her  the  necessary  instructions.  He  saw  at 
once  that  she  was  both  intelligent  and  experienced, 
and  began  to  have  more  hope  for  the  patient's 
recovery.  Of  the  spinal  symptoms  he  had  heard 
nothing. 

"  Don't  be  afraid,"  he  said  kindly,  shaking  hands 
at  the  door.    "  I  think  he  will  not  die." 

Olive  looked  at  him,  smiling. 

"  I  am  not  afraid.  Even  if  he  should  die,  it  won't 
matter  very  much.     But  I  suppose  we  must  try  to 


OLIVE    LATHAM  299 

pull  him  round;  then  he  can  decide  for  himself 
whether  it  is  worth  his  while  to  go  on." 

The  doctor  drew  back,  and  stared  at  her. 

''  Dear  heaven !"  he  said  to  himself  as  he  went 
downstairs.     ''  What  an  awful  woman !" 

When  he  had  gone,  Olive  sent  the  kind  Abraham 
for  disinfectants  and  clean  linen,  and  called  up  Khaia 
to  help  her  alter  the  arrangements  of  the  sick-room. 
Karol  had  left  off  tossing  and  muttering,  and  lay 
still,  for  the  moment,  with  fixed,  wide  eyes.  As  she 
slightly  raised  his  body  in  her  arms  to  let  the  Jewess 
slip  the  clean  sheet  under  it,  three  female  voices,  old 
and  husky,  rose  from  the  street  below  in  a  quavering, 
discordant  shriek,  followed  by  the  jeering  cries  of 
street-boys.  He  moaned  under  his  breath  at  the 
sound. 

''  It's  those  wretched  old  painted  scarecrows 
again,"  said  Khaia  angrily.  "  He  would  give  them 
money  the  day  Mendel  brought  him  here,  and  we've 
had  no  peace  from  them  ever  since.  They've  been 
round  every  music-hall  in  Galicia  as  long  as  I  can 
remember,  with  the  same  everlasting  song  about  how 
young  and  pretty  they  are,  and  what  a  dance  they 
lead  the  men — the  shameless  death's-heads !  I  sup- 
pose it's  the  only  one  they  know.  They  used  to 
be  called  the  Skipping  Sisters.  I've  heard  tell  one 
of  them  was  a  beauty  flaunting  about  in  Vienna  in 


300  OLIVE    LATHAM 

fine  style  when  our  mothers  were  children.  They 
can't  get  taken  on  anywhere  now,  and  they  trapes 
the  streets  for  coppers.  It's  a  sin  in  the  boys  to  pelt 
them,  though  ..." 

"  Hush !"  Olive  interrupted  softly,  taking  money 
from  her  purse.  "  Will  you  give  them  this,  and  ask 
them  to  go  further  off?  We  must  have  no  noise 
here." 

The  miserable  old  voices  were  now  screaming  out 
German  doggerel  rhymes  to  a  horrible  tune  full  of 
quirks  and  drawls  and  foul  suggestions. 

"  Ach,  wie  ist  es  herzlich  schon, 
Wenn  wir  drei  spazieren  gehn.  .  .  ." 

A  dreadful  look  came  into  Karol's  eyes. 

"  Starving  .  .  ."  he  muttered.     "  Starving  .  .  ." 

The  women  were  sent  away,  and  he  sank  into  a 

half-conscious   state.      Late   in   the   evening   Olive 

heard  a  cry  from  the  bed  that  made  her  heart  leap 

painfully. 

"  '  Arise !  It  is  not  yet  the  time  for  sleep.'  " 
His  mind  was  still  running  on  "  Anhelli." 
She  crossed  the  room  to  the  bedside.  He  was  in 
a  burning  fever,  struggling  to  get  up.  After  some 
time  his  temperature  fell  a  little,  and  he  lay  still. 
She  darkened  the  room,  and  sat  down  by  the 
window.  Presently  the  voice  from  the  bed  began 
again,  this  time  slow  and  clear : 


OLIVE    LATHAM  301 

'' '  Behold,  there  is  no  fowl  in  the  air  which  hath 
not  slept,  in  the  days  of  his  life,  one  night  in  his  quiet 
nest.     But  me  God  has  forgotten,  and  I  would  die. 

'' '  For  methinks,  when  I  shall  be  dead,  God  Him- 
self will  repent  Him  that  He  has  dealt  thus  with  me, 
remembering  that  I  shall  not  be  born  again  a  second 
time.  .  .  . 

"  '  Therefore  am  I  sad  that  I  have  seen  the  angel ; 
and  I  would  I  had  died  yesterday.'  " 

She  leaned  against  the  window-sill,  and  covered 
her  face.    The  voice  out  of  the  darkness  went  on : 

"  ' .  .  .  And  she  was  born  from  a  tear  of  the 
Christ  on  Golgotha,  from  a  tear  which  was  shed  for 
the  nations. 

*' '  Also  it  is  written  of  this  angel,  child  of  the 
Child  of  Our  Lady  Mary,  how  she  sinned,  having 
pity  on  the  torment  of  the  black  angels;  how  she 
loved  one  among  them,  and  fled  with  him  into  the 
darkness. 

"  *  Now  is  she  an  exile,  even  as  ye  are  exiles,  and 
her  love  is  given  to  the  tombs  of  your  people;  she 
is  become  the  shepherdess  of  them  that  dwell  therein, 
saying  to  the  dead  bones :  "  Leave  your  complain- 
ing, and  sleep."  '  " 

Olive  lifted  up  her  head,  and  sat  listening,  breath- 
less, with  parted  lips  and  wide  eyes  in  the  dark. 

"  Ach,  wie  ist  es  herzlich  schon.  .  .  ." 


302  OLIVE    LATHAM 

The  hateful  cracked  voices  quavered  up  again. 
Then  came  a  burst  of  laughter,  and  a  man's  voice, 
drunken  and  jeering: 

''  Give  us  a  kiss,  old  bag  of  bones !" 

She  opened  the  window.  Chill  rain  struck  against 
her  cheek  as  she  leaned  out.  In  the  mud  of  the  empty 
roadway  the  three  old  sisters  cowered,  their  tawdry 
skirts  flapping  in  the  wind,  their  juvenile  hats 
rakishly  tipped  awry  over  shameless,  brass-coloured 
wigs.  One  of  them,  hearing  the  window  rattle, 
looked  up,  and  sobbed  out  a  squalid  litany  of  cold 
and  hunger  and  the  petty  persecutions  of  street-boys, 
and  again  cold  and  hunger.  A  dishonoured  wisp 
of  gray  hair,  escaping  from  under  the  wig,  dangled, 
infamous,  against  her  ruddled  cheek. 

''  A  lodging  for  the  night,  dear  lady !  Only  a 
lodging  for  the  night.  .  .  ." 

Olive  threw  down  money,  motioning  them  away 
with  a  finger  on  her  lip.  All  three  sisters  kissed  their 
skinny  hands  to  her  as  they  shuffled  down  the  street. 

Karol  was  moaning  under  his  breath.  She  went 
back  to  the  bedside,  and  stood  looking  down  at  him. 
A  faint,  mocking  quaver  trailed  in  from  the  distance : 

"  Ach,  wie — ist  es — herzlich — schon.  ..." 

She  thought  of  Vladimir ;  and,  for  the  first  time, 
envied  him  his  good  luck.    He,  at  least,  was  dead. 


CHAPTER    VI 

When  Dr.  Buerger  told  Olive  that  the  patient  was 
out  of  danger,  she  raised  her  eyebrows  slightly,  in 
her  father's  way,  and  made  no  comment.  The  sense 
of  repulsion,  almost  of  dread,  which  her  callousness 
had  aroused  in  him  at  their  first  meeting,  came  back 
upon  him  for  a  moment  with  overwhelming  force; 
the  next  instant  he  found  himself  sighing  because 
such  nurses  were  not  obtainable  for  his  other 
patients.  He  went  away  pondering  over  the  anomaly 
of  anyone  taking  so  much  trouble  to  save  a  life  and 
then  not  caring  to  hear  that  it  was  saved. 

She  cared,  indeed,  for  nothing  but  to  get  the  sick 
man  back  to  England  as  quickly  as  she  could,  at 
almost  any  cost.  The  nearness  of  the  Russian 
frontier  haunted  her;  waking  and  asleep,  she  felt 
it  close;  her  broken  rest  was  full  of  nightmares. 
With  sufficient  exercise  of  pressure  in  high  places, 
was  not  a  claim  for  extradition  possible?  Or  even 
without  that,  in  a  little,  sleepy,  obscure  town,  so 
near  to  the  ^'  ditch,"  so  far  from  any  wide  publicity, 
what  might  not  be  done  by  judicious  bribing  of  petty 
local  officials?  There  had  been  cases,  if  not  here, 
at  least  on  the  Balkan  frontiers.  Cleverly  managed, 
the  thing  would  be  easy  enough.     A  little  black- 

303 


304  OLIVE    LATHAM 

mailing,  a  little  flattery,  a  little  money,  distributed 
by  some  smiling  Russian  agent;  a  swift  kidnapping 
on  a  dark  night;  a  sham  inquiry  hugger-muggered 
in  a  corner;  then  a  few  vehement  protests  in  the 
newspapers,  a  question  in  Parliament,  a  diplomatic 
note  or  two ;  and  nothing  more.  "  It  has  been 
done,"  she  told  herself  day  after  day  and  night  after 
night ;  ''  why  may  it  not  be  done  again  ?" 

Under  the  obsession  of  this  monstrous  fear,  the 
other  fate  which  hung  over  her  patient  seemed  to 
her  less  hideous ;  anything  would  be  endurable,  she 
thought,  if  she  could  bring  him  safely  outside  the 
shadow  of  Russian  influence.  Assuredly  the  end 
must  come  soon,  but  on  English  soil  it  could  come 
without  terror. 

Having  no  one  else  to  consult,  she  asked  Karol 
himself,  as  soon  as  he  was  able  to  understand  and 
answer  her,  whether  he  apprehended  any  danger  of  a 
Russian  attempt  to  seize  upon  him  by  legal  or  illegal 
means. 

"  Oh,  that's  all  right,"  he  replied,  with  a  faint  echo 
of  his  old  laconic  speech.  "  Kidnapping  would  be 
much  too  risky  here;  it's  not  like  Roumania  or 
Turkey ;  and  as  for  extradition,  the  people  in  Vienna 
are  quite  a  decent  lot.  They  may  possibly  turn  me 
out,  if  the  Russians  bother  them  enough,  but  even 
then  they'll  let  me  choose  which  frontier." 


OLIVE    LATHAM  305 

With  so  much  assurance  she  had  to  be  content. 
Indeed,  his  physical  condition  left  her  no  option  but 
to  wait.  The  healing  of  the  splintered  bone  was 
slow  and  difficult;  the  wound,  poisoned  by  the  in- 
sanitary conditions  of  the  first  night,  festered  per- 
sistently; and  whenever  the  inflammation  subsided 
for  a  few  days,  the  pain  it  had  caused  always  left 
him  in  such  a  state  of  exhaustion  that  to  inflict  upon 
him  the  fatigue  of  a  long  journey  would  have  been 
dangerous  as  well  as  cruel.  He  himself,  during  these 
rare  and  short  intervals  of  relief,  desired  only  to 
sleep,  while  sleep  was  possible.  For  some  weeks 
even  his  work,  the  dominant  interest  of  his  life, 
seemed  to  have  faded  out  of  his  mind.  He  lay  still, 
and  asked  no  questions. 

As  he  slowly  regained  strength,  the  stiff  aloofness 
of  his  manner  towards  Olive  grew  more  noticeable; 
it  was  almost  as  if  he  felt  her  presence  a  personal 
annoyance.  When,  returning  to  consciousness  after 
the  fever,  he  saw  her  for  the  first  time,  sitting  by  his 
bed,  he  lay  looking  at  her  for  a  long  while,  and  then 
turned  his  head  away  with  a  broken  murmur :  "  Oh, 
they  might  have  sent  someone  else !"  Since  then  he 
had  been  icily  courteous,  with  momentary  flashes  of 
suppressed  resentment  which  now  puzzled,  now 
frightened  her. 

To  her  these  were  terrible  weeks.    Never  before, 

20 


306  OLIVE    LATHAM 

even  when  nursing  most  difficult  and  critical  cases, 
had  she  felt  so  crushed  under  the  weight  of  her 
responsibility ;  never  before  had  the  preservation  of 
a  life  seemed  to  her  so  cruel  and  so  futile.  The 
situation,  hard  enough  in  itself,  was  rendered  yet 
harder  for  both  by  a  mysterious  torment  of  shyness ; 
a  fierce  modesty  of  early  youth,  which  now  fell,  a 
horrible  affliction,  on  the  mature  man  and  woman. 
For  the  first  time  in  her  career  as  a  nurse  the  neces- 
sity of  uncovering  and  touching  her  patient's  body, 
of  washing  his  wound,  of  lifting  him  in  her  arms, 
made  her  ashamed ;  he  himself,  flushing  and  paling, 
would  mutter  with  averted  eyes :  "  Can't  Abraham 
doit?" 

She  wondered  sometimes  whether,  before  the  in- 
evitable end,  he  would  forget  the  distress  she  now 
caused  him,  and  be  her  friend  again  in  the  old, 
simple,  priceless  way.  It  was  quite  natural,  she  told 
herself,  that  he  should  feel  bitter  against  her  just 
now,  but  it  would  be  hard  if  bitterness  were  to  be  the 
last  she  would  have  of  him. 

After  all,  when  one  came  to  analyze  it,  she  had 
never  possessed  very  much  of  his  friendship.  He  had 
pulled  her  up  out  of  the  pit ;  had  given  her  courage 
to  live  and  work  to  live  for ;  but  he  had  remained  to 
her  a  riddle,  and  now  at  the  end,  though  she  knew  his 
secret,  she  still  knew  nothing  of  him.     Even  little 


OLIVE    LATHAM  307 

things  such  as  every  patient  tells  to  every  nurse  were 
sometimes  matters  of  guesswork ;  he  had  never  been 
free  of  speech,  and  was  now  almost  entirely  silent. 
While  the  acute  pain  lasted,  the  rigid  set  of  his  mouth 
was  often  its  sole  expression ;  slower  breathing  and 
a  relaxation  of  the  lines  told  her  when  it  was  over. 

Seven  weeks  after  her  arrival  she  came  into  the 
room  one  day  to  dress  the  wound,  and  found  him 
reading  a  letter  which  Khaia  had  brought  in.  It  had 
a  London  postmark. 

''  Marcinkiewicz  seems  to  be  in  another  difficulty 
with  those  Lithuanians,"  he  said,  without  looking  up. 
"  He  wants  to  know  how  soon  we  are  coming  back." 

"  Dr.  Buerger  thinks  you  might  travel  next  week. 
Of  course,  you  will  have  an  invalid-carriage." 

''  We  must  try  to  manage  without  that ;  it's  too 
expensive,  and  the  funds  are  running  low." 

"  My  father  has  sent  me  plenty  of  money.  I  had 
a  letter  from  him  to-day  asking  me  to  telegraph 
when  we  start.  He  will  cross  over  and  meet  us  at 
Calais." 

''  But  we  can't  put  your  father  to  expense 
and  .  .  ." 

"Let  him  do  as  he  likes,  Karol;  it's  a  small 
matter  to  you,  and  very  much  happiness  to  him  if 
he  can  do  even  a  little  thing  for  you." 

He  reflected  for  a  moment,  frowning;   then  said 


308  OLIVE    LATHAM 

carelessly :  '''  Very  well,  if  he  wishes  it,"  and  went 
on :  ''  In  that  case,  we  had  better  start  as  soon  as 
Buerger  will  allow  it.  I  can  stand  the  journey 
quite  well  now,  and  there  are  things  that  must  be 
settled." 

"  Yes,  of  course." 

She  hesitated,  w^ith  quickened  breath,  gathering 
courage  to  break  down  the  unnatural  reserve  between 
them." 

"  Karol,  I  do  know.    Marcinkiewicz  told  me." 

In  the  pause  that  followed,  the  ticking  of  a  clock 
on  the  table  filled  her  ears  with  sharp,  importunate 
noise;  a  tiny  sound  grown  deafening,  enormously 
magnified.  When  at  last  he  spoke,  the  tone  of  his 
voice  made  her  shrink  as  though  she  had  been  found 
guilty  of  some  vile  indelicacy. 

*'  The  worst  of  Marcinkiewicz  is  that  he  is  young. 
He  will  have  to  get  out  of  that  trick  of  telling  people 
things." 

"  He  didn't  mean  to  tell  me,"  she  stammered. 
''  He  thought  ...  I  knew  .  .  .  thought  you  would 
have  told  me." 

"  That  is  what  I  mean  by  being  young." 

She  looked  at  him  with  a  desolate  wonder. 

"  Am  I  young?  I  don't  feel  as  if  there  were  much 
youth  left  in  me,  but  ...  I  too  .  .  .  thought  .  .  . 
you  would  have  told  me." 


OLIVE    LATHAM  309 

''  My  dear  Olive,  if  telling  things  to  people  will  do 
any  practical  good,  that  is  a  reason  for  telling. 
Otherwise,  I  think,  unpleasant  news  is  best  kept  to 
one's  self/' 

He  added,  with  punctilious  courtesy : 

"  Certainly,  if  the  thing  had  been  a  pleasant  one,  I 
would  have  shared  it  with  you  at  once;  but  why 
should  I  inflict  my  personal  misfortunes  on  my 
friends  ?  You  have  had  far  too  much  bother  on  my 
account  as  it  is." 

She  caught  her  breath;  it  was  enough  to  be  shut 
out  in  the  dark,  without  formal  speeches. 

"  Are  we  to  begin  saying  polite  things  to  each 
other,  you  and  I?  Of  course,  you  had  every  right 
to  keep  your  secret  from  me,  if  you  wished." 

There  was  a  little  break  in  her  voice. 

"  And  don't  think  me  stupid  enough  not  to  know 
I've  done  a  brutal  thing,  dragging  you  back  to  life 
this  way.  I  don't  expect  you  to  feel  friendly  towards 
me;  I've  taken  away  your  one  chance." 

"  On  the  contrary,  I  am  particularly  grateful  to 
you  for  pulling  me  through.  It  would  have  been 
most  inconvenient  for  me  to  die  just  now;  my 
arrangements  are  not  finished." 

"Your  .  .  .  personal  arrangements  ?" 

The  immediate  hardening  of  his  face  warned  her 
that  she  had  trespassed  on  private  ground. 


310  OLIVE    LATHAM 

"  I  was  speaking  of  business.  A  man's  personal 
arrangements  concern  no  one  but  himself." 

"  In  that  case  ..."  She  slowly  rose,  crossed  the 
room,  and  unlocked  a  drawer.  "  I  had  better  give 
you  back  this." 

He  raised  his  eyes  to  hers  as  he  took  the  little 
bottle  from  her  hand ;  and  they  looked  at  each  other, 
silent,  with  white  faces. 

"  You  found  it  on  me?" 

"  Khaia  did ;  she  gave  it  to  me  when  I  came.  It 
was  she  who  unfastened  your  clothes  after  you  lost 
consciousness." 

*'  How  much  does  she  know  ?" 

"  Nothing  beyond  the  bare  fact  that  it  is  morphia. 
When  she  began  talking  to  me  about  it,  I  put  her  off 
with  a  lie ;  I  told  her  you  had  been  having  toothache 
in  London,  and  were  taking  drops  for  it." 

"  Thank  you,"  he  said,  and  put  the  bottle  inside 
his  shirt.    ''  That  was  kind." 

She  took  up  a  bandage  and  began  to  roll  it. 

*'  I  ought  to  do  the  dressing  now,"  she  said  in  a 
lifeless  way. 

Taking  off  the  lint,  she  felt  the  thigh  she  touched 
quiver  sharply  under  her  hand,  and  asked : 

"Did  I  hurt  you?" 

"Oh,  no;  I'm  a  little  tired." 

He  lay  with  closed  eyes  till  she  had  finished,  and 


OLIVE    LATHAM  311 

his  breathing  seemed  to  her  more  than  usually  rapid 
and  distressed.  She  glanced  anxiously  at  the 
strained  face  as  she  replaced  the  bed-clothes. 

*'  Thank  you,"  he  said,  opening  his  eyes  with  a 
little  set  smile.  "  I  am  sorry  you  should  have  so 
much  bother  with  all  this." 

His  right  hand,  white  and  shrunken,  showing  the 
big  bones,  fidgeted  nervously  with  the  edge  of  the 
sheet.  She  looked  at  it  in  wonder;  aimless  move- 
ment of  any  kind  was  so  unlike  Karol.  Then  a 
sudden  thought  of  Vladimir's  restless,  unforgotten, 
marvellous  hands  caught  her  by  the  throat. 

The  memory  had  scarcely  flashed  through  her 
mind  before  Karol  guessed  it.  The  hand  paused  for 
an  instant,  and  slipped  under  the  sheet. 

"  By  the  way,"  he  said,  after  a  moment;  "  as  the 
subject  has  come  up,  I  ought  to  explain :  the  morphia 
.  .  .  was  not  intended  for  immediate  use." 

She  went  on  smoothing  the  counterpane.  Her 
voice  was  monotonous  and  quiet. 

"  You  will  wait  till  the  business  arrangements  are 
finished?" 

''  Probably  even  longer.  You  know  the  progress 
of  this  thing  is  very  slow.  It  may  be  several  months 
yet,  or  perhaps  a  year,  before  I  become  quite  para- 
lyzed; and  there  are  plenty  of  things  needed  that  a 
partially  crippled  person  can  do.    It  is  simply  a  ques- 


312  OLIVE    LATHAM 

tion  of  being  prepared  beforehand ;  one  can't  know 
what  course  it  will  take." 

"  Then,  later  on  .  .  .    ?" 

"  When  it  reaches  a  stage  that  prevents  my  work- 
ing, I  shall  naturally  dispose  of  my  life  in  the  way 
most  convenient  to  me." 

She  stood  still,  with  a  hand  tightening  on  the  foot- 
rail  of  the  bed. 

"  You  mean  that,  so  long  as  it  is  physically  pos- 
sible for  you  to  be  of  use  to  your  party,  you  will  hold 
yourself  bound  to  go  on  living,  whatever  the  con- 
ditions may  be?" 

The  ticking  of  the  clock  filled  in  another  silence. 

"  When  I  undertook  the  work,  I  didn't  bargain  for 
pleasant  conditions  ..." 

His  voice  dropped,  and  the  sentence  was  finished 
in  an  undertone : 

"  And  .  .  .  perhaps  it  won't  be  so  long.  .  .  ." 

Then  he  turned  his  head  away  quickly;  and  she, 
with  a  pale  face,  began  to  put  the  room  tidy. 

As  soon  as  she  could  obtain  Dr.  Buerger's  consent, 
Olive  engaged  an  invalid-carriage,  and  made  all 
necessary  preparations  for  the  journey.  At  the  last 
moment,  however,  her  arrangements  had  to  be  can- 
celled ;  another  abscess  formed  in  the  wound,  and  for 
ten  days  the  patient  was  too  ill  to  travel. 

Meanwhile  frosty  weather  set  in.     At  dawn  one 


OLIVE    LATHAM  313 

morning  she  found  the  temperature  of  the  room 
unduly  low,  and  fetched  firewood,  moving  about 
softly  in  felt  slippers  that  Karol  might  not  wake. 
He  had  fallen  asleep  after  a  fearful  night,  and  lay  in 
an  attitude  of  complete  exhaustion,  with  a  haggard 
face  upturned,  gray  in  the  dim  twilight. 

The  fuel,  which  had  been  kept  in  a  damp  cellar, 
spluttered  and  smoked  for  a  long  time  before  she 
could  get  it  to  burn.  Kneeling  by  the  stove,  she 
shifted  the  logs  with  careful  hands,  pausing  now  and 
then  to  look  back  over  her  shoulder  at  the  sleeping 
man.  While  so  occupied,  she  amazed  herself  by 
bursting  into  a  fit  of  helpless  sobbing.  But  her  tears 
had  nothing  to  do  with  her  grief ;  they  were  because 
of  the  weariness  of  her  sleepless  night,  and  because 
the  fire  would  not  burn. 

When  Karol  was  fit  to  travel  she  brought  him 
back  to  England.  On  the  journey  they  scarcely 
spoke  without  necessity.  Baffled  and  hurt  by  his 
freezing  reserve,  she  had  adopted,  in  sheer  self- 
defence,  the  conventional  manner  of  the  trained  sick- 
nurse;  and  no  one  seeing  her  as  she  moved  about, 
efficient,  quiet  and  alert,  watchful  of  her  patient's 
bodily  needs,  indifferent  to  his  personality,  could 
have  guessed  that  he  was  anything  more  to  her  than 
a  stranger  on  whom  she  was  hired  to  attend. 

Mr.  Latham,  who  met  the  travellers  on  Calais  pier, 


314  OLIVE    LATHAM 

noticed  the  singular  restraint  between  them,  but  was 
wise  enough  to  ask  no  questions.  "  I  wonder  which 
has  been  having  the  harder  time,"  he  thought,  look- 
ing from  one  worn  face  to  the  other. 

''  Have  you  got  lodgings  for  us?"  she  asked  when 
her  father  turned  to  walk  with  her  along  the  windy 
deck,  after  a  sheltered  spot  had  been  found  for 
Karol's  stretcher. 

"  No ;  I  had  a  talk  with  Dr.  Morton,  and  also  with 
your  friend  of  the  unpronounceable  name.  .  .  ." 

''  Marcinkiewicz  ?" 

"  That's  it.  They  both  agree  with  me  that  you 
had  better  come  straight  to  Heathbridge.  We  can 
give  an  invalid  more  comfort  and  purer  air  than  he 
could  have  in  London  lodgings." 

"  But,  daddy,  what  about  mother  ?" 

"  Your  mother  is  away ;  Jenny  has  taken  her  to 
spend  the  winter  on  the  Riviera.  It  was  the  child's 
own  suggestion;  she  thought,  with  a  serious  case 
like  this  to  nurse,  you  would  find  it  easier  at  home, 
so  she  persuaded  your  mother  to  try  whether  Bor- 
dighera  will  do  her  neuralgia  good.  Clever  of  her, 
wasn't  it?    And  they'll  both  enjoy  it." 

"  Will  they  be  away  all  the  winter?" 

"  Yes ;  you  can  turn  the  house  into  a  hospital,  or 
a  workshop,  or  anything  you  like,  and  have  your 
foreigners  down  for  week-ends  if  they  can't  refrain 


OLIVE    LATHAM  315 

from  bothering  the  man  while  he  is  ill.  I  shall  just 
live  in  my  corner  and  not  disturb  you,  and  Dick  Grey 
will  fetch  and  carry  for  you  when  the  United  Old 
Women's  Debating  Clubs  leave  him  any  free  time. 
Dick's  a  good  fellow,  by  the  way." 

She  rubbed  her  hand  along  his  coatsleeve,  with  a 
shaky  whisper : 

"  You  are,  daddy,  at  any  rate." 

Karol,  when  told  of  the  arrangement,  looked 
worried  and  muttered  something  about  "  giving  so 
much  trouble,"  but  he  was  far  too  weary  and  de- 
pressed to  make  difficulties,  and  submitted  passively 
to  whatever  Olive  wished.  For  her  the  relief  was 
enormous;  her  father's  restful  presence,  the  loving 
solicitude  with  which  he  and  Dick  and  old  Dr.  Mor- 
ton all  surrounded  her,  the  tranquil  sense  of  having 
her  patient  safe  in  her  own  home,  with  friends  to 
share  her  weight  of  responsibility,  helped  her  more 
than  anything  else  could  have  done.  As  for  Karol 
himself,  fresh  air  and  quiet,  and  the  luxurious  ease 
of  a  wealthy  country  house,  soon  improved  his 
physical  condition ;  the  wound  left  off  festering,  and 
began  to  heal.  For  the  rest,  he  gave  his  conscien- 
tious attention  to  the  matters  on  which,  from  time  to 
time,  Marcinkiewicz  asked  his  advice,  but,  unless 
directly  applied  to,  remained  indifferent,  too  tired 
to  care. 


316  OLIVE    LATHAM 

The  winter  passed  uneventfully.  After  the  new 
year  he  gradually  took  up  again  such  of  his  editorial 
duties  as  were  possible  to  a  bedridden  man;  and, 
raised  against  the  pillows,  read  business  letters  and 
sifted  contributions  for  several  hours  of  every  day. 
Marcinkiewicz  came  down  once  a  week  to  report 
the  progress  of  the  work  and  receive  instructions 
and  advice,  and  Olive  gradually  slipped  back  from 
the  position  of  nurse  to  that  of  secretary.  Her 
writing-table  was  placed  in  the  sick-room;  and  he 
dictated  from  his  bed,  with  a  hard,  even  voice  and  a 
face  that  told  nothing. 

One  day  in  March,  while  she  was  taking  down 
from  dictation  a  long  statement  of  accounts,  her 
father  came  into  the  room. 

''  Am  I  interrupting  your  work?  I  have  brought 
you  good  news." 

Karol  laid  his  papers  aside,  and  looked  up  with 
polite  attention.  News,  whether  good  or  bad,  had 
little  interest  for  him  nowadays. 

"  I  met  Dr.  Morton  in  the  lane  just  now.  He 
seems  really  to  have  satisfied  himself  that  the  bone 
is  set  at  last,  and  says,  when  he  comes  to-mor- 
row, he  will  let  you  try  if  you  can  walk  across  the 
room." 

Olive,  bending  her  head  down  over  her  writing, 
heard  Karol's  measured  answer: 


OLIVE    LATHAM  317 

"  That  is  perhaps  rather  more  than  I  can  fairly 
axpect  to  manage  just  at  first;  but  we  shall  see." 

"  It  will  be  quite  a  red-letter  day  for  Olive  and 
me,"  Mr.  Latham  said,  smiling,  and  passed  his  hand 
caressingly  over  the  girl's  bowed  head.  "  Won't  it, 
my  darling?" 

She  bit  her  lip ;  and  he,  feeling  her  tremble  under 
his  hand,  went  quietly  out,  not  to  intrude  upon  their 
joy.  When  the  door  shut  she  raised  her  head.  A 
quick  sob  rose  in  her  throat  as  her  eyes  met  Karol's, 
and  was  choked  back  with  a  passionate  effort. 

"  Karol,  we  can't  keep  this  up  any  longer.  Why 
won't  you  tell  them?  They  must  find  out  to- 
morrow." 

"  There  is  no  need  for  them  to  find  out,"  he 
answered  in  the  unmodulated  voice  that  always 
silenced  her.  "  It  may  not  have  gone  very  much 
further  in  these  six  months ;  perhaps  I  shall  be  able 
to  stand.  And  if  not,  they  will  only  suppose  it  is 
weakness ;  you  know,  people  usually  take  some  time 
to  get  on  their  feet  again  after  several  months  in 
bed." 

She  made  one  more  effort,  desperately. 

"  Well,  granted ;  you  may  be  able  to  deceive  them 
to-morrow,  perhaps.  And  what  about  next  day  and 
the  day  after?" 

"  I  must  invent  an  urgent  need  for  going  to  Lon- 


318  OLIVE    LATHAM 

don  at  once.  Marcinkiewicz  shall  send  me  a  tele- 
gram. Anyhow,  I  should  have  had  to  go  soon; 
I've  invaded  your  father's  house  quite  long  enough." 

"  You  know  it  will  only  distress  him  if  you  go 
away,  still  unable  to  walk,  while  the  house  is  at  your 
service.  Mother  and  Jenny  will  be  in  Switzerland 
till  June.  Karol,  he  does  care  about  you;  why 
can't  you  tell  him  the  truth?" 

''  Firstly,  because  I  am  not  fond  of  giving  people 
trouble.  Your  father  has  been  far  too  generous 
already,  and  would  insist  on  trying  to  do  a  lot  more 
things  for  me  if  he  knew.  And,  secondly,  because 
just  at  present  I  have  no  use  for  the  sympathy  of 
kind  friends.  I  want  to  go  out,  when  I  have  to, 
decently  and  quietly,  without  good-byes.  Well, 
then,  since  you  must  have  all  the  '  i's'  dotted :  be- 
cause I  can  bear  the  thing  itself,  but  not  any  talk 
about  it.  We  will  wait  till  to-morrow,  anyhow. 
And  now,  please,  I  should  like  to  finish  these  ac- 
counts before  post-time." 


CHAPTER    VII 

Olive  passed  a  wretched  night,  counting  the  hours 
till  morning.  When  she  entered  Karol's  room  after 
breakfast,  her  father  was  already  there,  chatting 
with  his  guest,  according  to  his  daily  custom,  before 
starting  for  the  train. 

"  I  shall  try  to  come  back  early  to-day,"  he  said 
as  they  shook  hands ;  "  to  hear  how  you  have  got 
on.  In  the  evening,  if  you  feel  up  to  it,  perhaps  we 
might  go  on  with  that  medical  manuscript — the  four- 
teenth-century one.  I  think,  with  your  help,  I  shall 
get  it  clear  now.  Good-bye,  and  good  luck !  Is  that 
you,  Morton?    I'm  just  off  to  my  train." 

Olive  went  out  of  the  room  with  her  father. 
When  Dr.  Morton  called  her  back  Karol  was 
dressed,  and  sitting  on  the  edge  of  his  bed.  The 
failure  of  his  first  attempts  to  stand  in  no  way  dis- 
quieted the  doctor,  who  only  nodded  and  smiled, 
repeating  in  his  cheerful  manner: 

"  Yes,  yes,  it's  sure  to  be  a  bit  difificult  at  first. 
Try  again;   you'll  manage  it  in  a  minute." 

Olive  had  turned  her  back,  and  stood  by  the 
window,  wringing  her  hands  unconsciously  together. 
Under  the  intolerable  mockery  of  the  thing,  a  bitter 

319 


320  OLIVE    LATHAM 

wrath  against  Karol  seized  upon  her.  If  he  could 
bear  it  himself,  he  had  no  right  to  force  on  her  this 
hateful  comedy ;  it  was  cruel,  it  was  unfair.  .  ,  . 

*'  Why,  that's  splendid !  You'll  walk  as  well  as 
I  do  in  a  month.  Man  alive,  you  must  have  the 
constitution  of  .  .  ." 

The  words  crashed  down  on  her  like  hammer- 
strokes,  then  a  tremendous  roaring  filled  her  ears. 
It  died  away  slowly,  and  there  was  silence. 

The  sound  of  Dick's  voice  on  the  stairs  made  her 
drop  the  hands  that  covered  her  eyes.  Dr.  Morton 
called  to  him,  triumphant. 

"  Mr.  Grey  ?  Come  in  and  congratulate  our 
patient ;  he  has  walked  across  the  room  three  times. 
Never  saw  a  thing  heal  better  in  my  life.  Hullo,  do 
you  feel  dizzy?  Lie  down  a  bit.  Olive,  will  you 
fetch  a  little  brandy?" 

"  No,  thanks ;  I'm  all  right  now,"  Karol  said.  He 
had  sat  down  by  the  table,  with  a  hand  over  his  eyes. 
Olive  came  up  to  him  and  touched  him  on  the  arm. 

"  Karol  .  .  .    ?" 

He  caught  her  hand  with  a  desperate  grip,  whis- 
pering huskily :  "  Get  them  out  of  the  room,  will 
you?" 

It  took  her  some  little  time  to  rid  the  house  of 
the  two  cheerful  sympathizers.  When  she  had  said 
good-bye  to  Dr.  Morton  at  the  front-door,  and  sent 


OLIVE    LATHAM  321 

Dick  off  on  an  improvised  message,  she  went  back 
into  Karol's  room.  He  was  again  sitting  with  an 
elbow  on  the  table  and  a  hand  across  his  eyes.  As 
she  came  in  he  looked  up,  very  white  and  stern. 

"  Would  you  mind  testing  the  reflexes  for  me?" 

She  obeyed.  The  automatic  jerk  of  the  knee,  as 
she  struck  it  sharply  with  the  edge  of  her  open  hand, 
seemed  to  her  scarcely  more  than  normal,  but  she 
knew  little  of  spinal  affections,  and  could  not  judge 
the  significance  of  the  symptom  till  she  saw  his  face. 
It  was  gray  and  terrible. 

"  That  will  do,  thanks.  Will  you  ask  them  not  to 
come  in  here?  I  should  like  to  be  alone  this 
morning." 

During  the  worst  period  of  his  illness  he  had 
occasionally  made  the  same  request;  and  she  had 
learned  to  recognize  this  imperious  need  for  soli- 
tude as  the  extremest  sign,  in  him,  of  bodily  or 
mental  distress.  She  went  slowly  away  without  a 
word. 

All  last  night,  and  all  these  dreadful  months,  she 
had  struggled  to  realize  the  thing,  to  prepare  herself 
before  the  worst  should  come.  Now  the  worst,  it 
seemed,  must  be  very  close.  She  could  have  met  it, 
if  not  with  tranquillity,  at  least  with  courage,  but  for 
the  needless  cruelty  of  this  mad,  momentary  hope 
that  had   sprung   up   and   withered   in   an   instant. 


322  OLIVE    LATHAM 

Surely,  for  no  lesser  thing  than  death  would  any 
man  wear  such  a  look. 

She  left  him  to  himself  till  the  afternoon.  By 
that  time  he  had  recovered  his  self-command,  and 
accepted  her  father's  congratulations  with  a  placid 
face.  A  few  days  later  he  came  down  to  dinner  on 
crutches.  Dr.  Morton  and  Dick  had  been  invited 
for  the  occasion;  and  Karol  appeared  in  a  new 
light,  keeping  the  guests  in  a  roar  of  laughter  with 
racy  anecdotes,  told  in  his  dry  Lithuanian  sing-song. 
Olive,  joining  in  the  merriment  for  courtesy,  with 
a  strangled  throat  and  burning  eyes,  saw  an  anxious 
shadow  pass  once  or  twice  across  her  father's  face. 
But  all  the  evening  he  fell  in,  as  a  gracious  host, 
with  the  mood  of  the  others;  and  gave  Olive  her 
good-night  kiss  at  the  end  without  speaking  of  what 
he  had  noticed,  if  indeed  he  had  noticed  anything. 
Once  again,  as  she  went  upstairs,  she  blessed  him 
in  her  heart  for  his  reticence. 

In  their  several  ways  they  continued  a  reticent 
household.  Karol,  limping  about  on  crutches  or 
sitting  at  his  writing-desk,  appeared  to  occasional 
callers  a  cheerful  convalescent.  With  Mr.  Latham 
he  chatted  pleasantly  at  evening,  or  deciphered 
crabbed  manuscripts  of  mediaeval  surgery  and  medi- 
cine; but  with  Olive,  in  the  daytime,  he  spoke  only 
for  necessity.     She  herself  had  grown  to  dread  the 


OLIVE    LATHAM  323 

hours  of  work  with  him;  it  seemed  to  her  that  he 
dwelt  alone  in  an  ice-bound  world,  where  her  in- 
trusion was  an  insolence ;  she  felt  herself  a  trespasser 
among  graves. 

As  Dr.  Morton  had  said  that  the  patient  would 
probably  be  able  to  discard  his  crutches  before  June, 
Mr.  Latham  pressed  him  to  stay  till  then. 

"  When  you  leave  this  house,"  he  said,  "  I  want 
to  see  you  walk  out  by  yourself,  without  artificial 
aids." 

"  I  shall  be  puffed  up  with  evil  pride  when  I  can 
do  that,"  he  answered  lightly,  and  turned  the  con- 
versation off  to  another  subject. 

The  second  week  in  May  brought  glorious 
weather,  and  Mr.  Latham  coaxed  Olive  away  from 
her  work  to  ramble  with  him  in  the  fields  and  woods. 

"  You'll  be  going  back  to  grind  in  London  soon," 
he  said.  "  You  and  I  and  the  spring  will  have  a 
good  time  together  while  we  can,  and  Slavinski 
must  just  do  without  you  for  a  bit." 

Karol  laughingly  declared  that  he  should  revenge 
himself  by  overworking  her  in  London. 

'^  Then  make  the  best  of  your  chances  now,  my 
dear,"  her  father  said.  ''  Get  your  hat  on,  and  leave 
this  hard  task-master  to  read  the  proofs  by  himself 
for  once." 

She  obeyed,  without  lifting  her  eyes   from  the 


324  OLIVE    LATHAM 

ground.  How  could  he  joke  about  it  ?  In  her  pres- 
ence, too !    How  could  he  .  .  . 

Coming  back  in  the  evening,  after  a  long  day's 
excursion,  the  father  and  daughter  entered  the  drive 
together.  Karol's  books  and  papers  were  littered 
over  a  table  under  the  chestnut-tree.  Apparently 
he  had  been  working  out  of  doors. 

"  Look !"  Mr.  Latham  cried  out.  "  He's  walking 
without  crutches !" 

Karol  was  in  front  of  them,  carrying  some  books 
into  the  house.  He  walked  with  evident  difficulty, 
limping  badly. 

"  But  he  doesn't  raise  the  dust.  .  .  ." 

She  said  the  words  aloud  before  she  knew  it.  Her 
father  did  not  hear;  he  had  run  on  and  overtaken 
his  guest. 

"  Bravo !  Don't  overdo  it,  though.  Let  me  take 
your  books.     Will  you  have  an  arm?" 

"  No,  thank  you;  it's  all  right,"  she  heard  Karol 
answer.  She  stood  watching  in  the  path  as  he 
walked  on  with  her  father.  At  the  doorstep  he 
paused  for  a  moment,  and  she  remembered  Jenny's 
exclamation  of  two  years  back :  "  There,  I  knew  he'd 
blunder  over  the  mat!"  This  time  he  entered  with- 
out stumbling,  lifting  his  feet  clear  of  the  two  steps. 

"  Why,  Olive,  what  makes  you  so  out  of  breath?" 

Dick  had  come  up  the  lane  behind  her.      She 


OLIVE    LATHAM  325 

turned  with  a  start,  and  saw  him  leaning  on  the 
gate. 

''Nothing;  I  .  .  .  I'm  in  a  hurry,  Dick.  Good- 
night." 

She  ran  into  the  house.  As  she  passed  the  study- 
door  her  father  called  her  in;  he  was  sitting  with 
Karol. 

"  Slavinski  won't  be  persuaded  to  stay  till  next 
month.  Now  he  can  walk  without  crutches  he  insists 
on  going  back  to  work." 

"  Did  you  think  I  was  going  to  quarter  myself 
upon  you  for  ever?"  Karol  asked  him.  "Do  you 
know  that  it's  five  months  since  I  invaded  the  most 
hospitable  of  all  houses?" 

"  Well,  stay  over  next  week,  anyhow.  By  the 
way,  I  have  to  go  up  to  London  to-morrow  for  a 
meeting  of  the  Aristotelians.  Shall  I  look  for 
lodgings  for  you?" 

"  I'll  do  it,  father,"  Olive  interrupted  hurriedly, 
catching  at  any  excuse  to  avoid  an  evening  alone 
with  Karol.  "  I  must  go  up  to  town  to  see  about 
clothes  and  .  .  .  lots  of  things.  We'll  have  a  day 
in  town  together,  and  go  to  a  matinee.  .  .  ." 

She  stopped,  breathless,  feeling  Karol's  eyes  upon 
her.  Mr.  Latham  looked  a  little  puzzled  and 
anxious,  but  only  said :  "  That  will  be  delightful," 
and  turned  back  to  his  guest. 


326  OLIVE    LATHAM 

"  I  shall  have  to  sleep  in  town,  so  we  must  leave 
the  commentary  on  Averroes  till  to-morrow.  Per- 
haps we  may  get  the  manuscript  finished  next  week." 

In  the  morning  Olive  and  her  father  went  up  to 
town,  and  parted  at  the  station,  agreeing  to  meet 
for  lunch  and  go  to  a  theatre  together.  One  of  her 
errands  took  her  through  the  Cavendish  Square  dis- 
trict, and,  passing  a  corner  house,  she  noticed  on  a 
doorplate  the  words  "  Sir  Joseph  Barr."  She  had 
walked  on  a  little  way,  repeating  the  name  mechani- 
cally to  herself,  before  it  struck  her  that  this  was 
the  authority  who  had  told  Karol  his  illness  was 
incurable. 

She  stood  for  a  moment  hesitating;  then,  with  a 
swift  impulse,  walked  back  to  the  house  and  rang 
the  bell  hastily,  not  daring  to  stop  and  think.  In  the 
waiting-room  she  leaned  on  the  table  and  fluttered 
the  pages  of  a  magazine.  "  I  have  no  right  to  do  it 
without  asking  his  consent,"  she  told  herself.  ''  But 
I  can't  go  on  Hke  this.    I  must  know  the  truth." 

After  an  hour  of  waiting  she  was  called  into  the 
consulting-room,  and  stated  her  business.  Sir 
Joseph  remembered  Karol  at  once. 

''  Ah,  yes,  a  Polish  exile,  wasn't  he?  Let  me  see, 
when  was  it  he  came  to  me?" 

"  Two  years  ago  this  month." 

He  looked  up  the  case  in  his  notebook. 


OLIVE    LATHAM  327 

''  And  you  find  his  gait  more  normal  since  liis 
long  illness  ?" 

"  He  is  very  lame  still,  and  is  only  beginning  to 
walk  without  crutches ;  but  he  doesn't  seem  to  catch 
his  feet  against  the  ground  as  he  did  last  year." 

"Have  you  spoken  to  him  about  it?  He  is  a 
doctor  himself,  I  think?" 

She  shook  her  head. 

''  I  have  not  dared  to ;  it  may  only  be  my  fancy, 
and  to  raise  a  false  hope  ..." 

"  Quite  possibly  a  true  one.  The  disease  is 
usually  considered  incurable ;  but  in  a  few  cases  that 
have  been  recorded  lately  perfect  rest  in  time  has 
stopped  the  morbid  process.  When  he  came  to  me 
I  told  him  to  lie  up  and  have  a  long  holiday  in  bed ; 
but  he  pleaded  pressure  of  work,  and  I  didn't  insist 
because  I  thought  the  thing  had  gone  too  far  already 
for  any  real  hope  of  cure.  There  is  just  a  chance 
that  this  gun-shot  wound  may  have  saved  him.  Yes, 
I  should  very  much  like  to  see  him  again." 

"  He  is  coming  up  to  town  the  week  after  next." 

"  I  shall  not  be  here ;  I  am  going  abroad  next 
Monday  for  a  month." 

She  crushed  her  hands  together  in  her  lap.  A 
whole  month.  .  .  . 

"  Would  you  .  .  .  can  you  spare  the  time  to  come 
to  Sussex  and  see  him?     I  don't  know  whether  I 


328  OLIVE    LATHAM 

could  persuade  him  to  come  up  for  a  consultation. 
He  is  so  hopeless  about  it;  I  scarcely  dare  ask 
him.  .  .  ." 

He  glanced  at  the  calendar. 

"  I  would  come,  certainly,  but  every  date  is  filled 
up;  there  is  only  this  evening.  I  am  free  after 
six.     The  Brighton  line,  is  it?" 

''  There's  a  good  evening  train  down  and  a  late 
one  back.  If  you  could  come  .  .  .  you  see,  it  would 
save  him  the  long  suspense." 

The  pavement  heaved  under  her  feet  as  she  left 
the  house.  Sending  a  hurried  message  to  warn  her 
father  not  to  expect  her,  she  took  the  first  train  back 
to  Heathbridge.  When  she  came  in,  Karol  looked 
up  in  momentary  surprise,  then  his  face  darkened. 

"  Karol  .  .  ." 

She  broke  off. 

"  You  have  been  to  see  Barr?" 

Her  eyes  dilated.  There  was  something  terrify- 
ing to  her  in  the  way  he  guessed  everything. 

"  I  .  .  .  You  have  a  right  to  be  annoyed,  I  sup- 
pose .  .  .  but  I  couldn't  stand  it  any  longer.  He  is 
coming  this  evening." 

"Here?" 

"  Yes.    I  begged  him  to." 

Karol  looked  out  of  the  window  for  a  moment. 

"  It  seems  almost  a  pity  to  bring  a  big  man  like 


OLIVE    LATHAM  329 

that  down  here,  doesn't  it  ?  Of  course,  I  had  meant 
to  go  to  him  in  London.  But  it  doesn't  matter,  only 
for  the  extra  expense.  Thank  you,  OHve;  it  was 
kind  of  you  to  think  of  it." 

She  turned  away,  sick  at  heart.  If  he  would  only 
be  angry,  nervous,  despondent  .  .  .  Anything 
would  be  less  horrible  than  this  indifference. 

All  the  evening  she  wandered  restlessly  about  the 
house  and  garden.  To  be  in  the  room  with  Karol 
while  the  suspense  lasted  was  unbearable  to  her. 
He,  with  a  face  of  iron,  sat  holding  an  open  book 
in  his  hand;  but  an  hour  passed  before  he  turned 
a  page. 

About  nine  o'clock  the  sound  of  wheels  on  the 
gravel  brought  her  back  into  the  study.  Karol  laid 
his  book  down  without  a  word. 

"  Sir  Joseph  Barr." 

She  put  a  shaking  hand  on  the  table  to  steady 
herself  as  she  rose.  Just  for  a  moment  the  room 
heaved  and  swam  as  the  London  street  had  done 
in  the  morning;  then  everything  was  quite  simple 
and  commonplace,  and  she  listened  to  the  questions 
and  answers  as  though  she  were  back  in  the  hospital 
ward  of  her  training  days,  hearing  the  fate  of  a 
stranger  decided,  and  wondering  that  she  did  not 
care  more. 

Sir  Joseph  stooped  and  tested  the  reflexes. 


330  OLIVE    LATHAM 

''  Your  luck !"  he  murmured. 

Karol's  voice  had  fallen  so  low  that  she  could 
scarcely  hear  it. 

"  Then  do  you  think  it  will  be  a  permanent  cure  ?" 

"  It's  early  to  say  that.  Of  course,  there  must  be 
no  more  hardship,  or  overfatigue,  or  knocking  about ; 
and,  however  careful  you  are,  I  can't  promise  yet 
that  it  won't  return.  But  you  have  a  real  chance; 
two  years  ago  I  wouldn't  have  believed  it  possible. 
How  old  are  you?  Under  forty?  Why,  if  you  lead 
a  reasonably  easy  life,  and  take  a  little  care  of  your- 
self, there  may  be  twenty  or  thirty  years'  work  in 
you  yet." 

"  I  seem  to  get  more  than  my  fair  share  of  luck 
in  life,"  Karol  answered,  smiling,  and  repeated  under 
his  breath :  "  Thirty  years.  ..." 

When  Sir  Joseph  left  to  catch  his  train,  Olive  went 
out  to  the  porch  with  him.  She  stood  for  a  long 
time  on  the  doorstep  alone,  looking  up  over  black 
tree-tops  at  a  sky  glorious  with  stars ;  but  even  stars 
could  not  help  her  to-night.  Turning  away  at  last, 
she  went  through  the  house  methodically,  fastening 
bolts  and  putting  out  lights.  It  was  late,  and  the 
servants  had  gone  to  bed. 

"  Is  that  sash  too  heavy  for  you?" 

She  was  shutting  the  staircase  window,  and,  turn- 
ing quickly  with  a  hand  on  the  banister,  saw  Karol 


OLIVE    LATHAM  331 

standing  in  the  study  doorway.  His  face,  in  the 
dim  light  from  the  room,  seemed  to  her  a  mask  of 
tragic  indifference.  She  came  down  the  steps,  im- 
placable, accusing. 

"  How  long  have  you  known?" 

"  That  it  is  getting  better  ?  I  found  it  out  the 
first  time  I  tried  to  walk,  of  course.  I  would  rather 
not  talk  about  it,  if  you  don't  mind.  Do  you  want 
the  study  windows  bolted  too?" 

He  went  back  into  the  room.  She  followed,  and 
stepping  swiftly  between  him  and  the  window,  con- 
fronted him  in  a  blazing  fury. 

"  Karol,  I  didn't  .  .  .  think  you  would  have 
treated  me  so.  .  .  .  It  was  a  heartless  thing.  .  .  . 
I  will  never  forgive  you  as  long  as  I  live.  .  .  . 
There,  I  don't  want  to  say  any  more.  .  .  .  Good- 
night. .  .  ." 

He  put  out  a  hand  and  stopped  her  as  she  turned 
to  go. 

"  Wait  a  minute.  When  you  say  things  of  that 
sort,  it's  well  to  give  a  reason.  What  have  I  done 
to  forfeit  your  goodwill?" 

"  What  you  have  done !  Haven't  you  known  for 
eight  weeks  .  .  .  there  was  hope  .  .  .  and  kept  me 
believing  .  .  .  Oh,  how  could  you  .  .  .  how  could 
you  .  .  .    !" 

She  began  to  choke  suddenly. 


332  OLIVE    LATHAM 

"  You  have  always  shut  me  out.  .  .  .  That  was 
your  right,  if  you  chose.  .  .  .  But  to  keep  even 
good  news  from  me  ..." 

A  kind  of  flash  passed  over  his  face.  Then  he 
turned  away  from  her,  shrugging  his  shoulders; 
and  she  knew  instantly  that  he  did  not  count  the 
news  as  good.  She  stretched  out  both  hands  to 
him. 

"Karol  .  .  .  Karol  ...  Oh,  I  didn't  under- 
stand. .  .  ." 

Her  voice  died  out. 

"You  see,"  he  said  at  last;  "I  had  got  accus- 
tomed." 

She  only  covered  her  face.  After  a  long  pause, 
she  came  up  to  him  softly  and  put  a  hand  on  his 
sleeve.    He  started  and  drew  back. 

"No,  no;  let  that  be!" 

He  turned  towards  her,  sombre  and  violent,  his 
eyes  black  with  a  sullen  revolt. 

"  The  truth  is,  I'm  a  bit  sick  of  being  shuttlecock. 
A  man  has  a  right  to  get  tired  some  time.  You  can 
face  death,  of  course,  if  you  have  to,  or  life  either 
for  that  matter;  but  to  be  tossed  backwards  and 
forwards  between  the  two,  and  have  to  keep  read- 
justing the  focus  .  .  .  and  anyway  I've  had  my 
share.  ..." 

He  checked  himself  hastily. 


OLIVE    LATHAM  333 

"  I  really  beg  your  pardon,  Olive ;  I  seem  to  be  in 
a  captious  mood  to-night.  It's  well  to  avoid  these 
personal  subjects,  I  think;  there's  no  use  in  talking 
about  them." 

He  stooped  over  the  writing-table,  collecting  his 
papers  in  a  flurried  way,  very  unlike  his  usual  slow 
deliberateness  of  movement.  A  little  heap  of  news- 
paper cuttings,  catching  in  his  sleeve,  jerked  away 
from  the  metal  clip  that  held  the  scraps  together. 
He  took  up  the  clip,  and  turned  it  over  in  his  hand, 
looking  persistently  away  from  Olive. 

"  I'm  very  sorry  if  you  are  hurt,"  he  went  on. 
"  Perhaps  I  ought  to  have  told  you.  But  I  .  .  . 
didn't  feel  cheerful  about  it.  I  should  have  told  you 
if  I  had  thought  .  .  ." 

She  interrupted  him  savagely. 

"  If  you  had  thought  .  .  .  what  ?  That  I  should 
care?  Ah,  for  God's  sake,  what  else  have  I  got  in 
the  world  to  care  about?" 

The  paper-clip  broke  in  his  hand.  He  threw  the 
bits  away,  and  they  fell  to  the  floor  with  a  small, 
clear  tinkle. 

''What  do  you  mean?"  he  said,  and  came  up  to 
her,  quiet  and  dangerous.     "  What  do  you  ..." 

They  stood  looking  at  each  other.  Then  he  caught 
her  by  the  shoulders  with  a  furious  cry,  and  kissed 
her  on  the  mouth. 


334  OLIVE    LATHAM 

He  wrenched  himself  out  of  her  arms  the 
next  instant,  putting  up  a  hand  to  keep  her 
oflF. 

"  Look  here,  you  and  I  have  gone  mad — stark 
mad,  both  of  us.     Did  you  think  ..." 

He  sat  down  at  the  table,  covering  his  eyes  with 
one  hand. 

"  Did  you  think  I  should  be  brute  enough  to  .  .  . 
marry  you  with  a  thing  like  this  hanging  over  me? 
.  .  .  How  do  I  know  it  won't  come  back?  You 
heard  what  he  said.  .  .  .  Love  ?  Ah,  Jesus,  Mary ! 
You  needn't  worry  about  that!  I've  loved  you 
enough,  ever  since  .  .  .  What  has  that  got  to  do 
with  it?  Don't  you  see  it's  just  as  if  I  were  dead 
too,  like  Volodya?  Except  for  the  work  ...  I 
suppose  I  must  go  on  working  as  long  as  it  will  let 
me;  but  I'm  not  going  to  share  a  life  of  this  sort 
with  anybody  else.  .  .  .  Take  your  hands  away! 
This  particular  bit  of  hell  is  mine,  and  I'll  keep  it 
to  myself.  .  .  ." 

"  But  you  can't.  It's  not  yours  any  longer ;  it's 
ours." 

She  was  kneeling  beside  him,  her  arms  round  his 
neck.  He  pulled  them  away,  with  a  fierce  grip  on 
her  wrists. 

"  Do  you  want  to  risk  being  tied  to  an  unburied 
corpse  all  your  days?     Ah,  you  don't  understand 


OLIVE    LATHAM  335 

what  the  thing  means;  it's  so  easy  to  say: 
'  Paralysis.'  " 

She  felt  the  fingers  holding  her  wrists  quiver  with 
the  horror  that  shook  him. 

''  You  can't  die  of  this,  mind.  You  don't  go  mad. 
You  lie  still  and  grow  stiff,  every  year  just  a  little 
stiffer.  .  .  .  Then  it  begins  to  crawl  upwards. 
.  .  .    Ah,  if  I  had  died  in  Akatui  .  .  ." 

"  But,  Karol,  there  is  always  morphia." 

The  hands  dropped  from  her  wrists.  Still 
kneeling,  she  slipped  her  arms  again  round  his 
neck. 

"  You  don't  think  I  should  want  you  to  go  on 
living  just  for  me,  if  you  yourself  thought  it  was 
better  not  ?  Can't  you  trust  me  more  than  that  ?  It 
won't  come  to  the  worst,  indeed  it  won't;  but  if  it 
ever  should,  you  have  only  to  tell  me  you  want  the 
poison." 

"And  you  .  .  .  would  give  it?'* 

"  Don't  you  know  I  would  kill  you  myself  rather 
than  let  you  fall  into  their  hands  alive?  Why  not 
for  this  as  well?  I  would  have  poisoned  Volodya, 
only  I  had  no  time.  But  while  you  are  here  .  .  . 
Oh,  Karol— Karol,  don't ;   it's  not  worth  that !" 

She  cowed  down  in  terror,  hiding  her  face  against 
his  knee.  She  had  thought  life  held  no  longer  any 
dread  that  could  so  dismay  her;    but  tears  from 


336  OLIVE    LATHAM 

Karol  ...    It  was  as  though  the  world  were  coming 
to  an  end. 

***** 

Dawn  found  them  still  together.  They  had  sat 
through  the  night,  unconscious  of  the  passing  hours ; 
silent  at  first,  then  talking  softly,  of  Akatui,  of 
Wanda,  chiefly  of  Vladimir.  Now,  as  always,  the 
dead  man  was  the  closest  of  the  ties  between  them. 

"  Come  out  and  see  the  sunrise,"  Karol  said. 
"  It  is  not  indoors  that  one  should  remember 
Volodya." 

They  drew  back  the  door-bolts,  quietly,  not  to 
wake  the  sleeping  household,  and  walked  through 
the  dewy  garden  hand  in  hand. 

The  shrubbery  path  ended  in  a  little  gate,  leading 
to  a  green  and  golden  meadow.  White  hawthorn 
petals  clung  to  Olive's  hair  as  she  came  out  from 
the  shadow  of  the  trees  into  the  level  sunlight.  Very 
far  up  in  a  pearly  sky,  a  lark  was  singing. 

Stooping  to  lift  the  latch  of  the  gate,  Karol  felt 
the  touch  of  the  girl's  fingers  on  his  hand.  He 
raised  his  head,  and  saw  her  looking  out  over  the 
meadow. 

"  Did  you  see  that  butterfly?  This  is  like  a  story 
I  once  heard  Volodya  tell  the  children,  about  a  Green 
Caterpillar  and  a  land  called  To-morrow,  where  all 
the  stars  fly  down  to  sleep  and  all  the  caterpillars 


OLIVE    LATHAM  337 

turn  to  butterflies.  I  have  thought — oh,  for  so  long 
— it  was  all  a  mistake,  and  there  wasn't  any  To- 
morrow Country.  But,  you  see,  he  was  right;  this 
is  To-morrow. '* 

Karol  pointed  down  at  the  grass. 

"  And  all  the  stars  are  here.  The  little  gold  things 
are  merciful;  they  come  even  to  Akatui.  Next 
month  Volodya's  swamp  will  be  thick  with  them 
too." 

The  stars  of  last  night's  heaven  had  fallen  to 
earth,  and  lay  about  their  feet  as  buttercups. 


THE   END 


22 


PIGS    IN    CLOVER 

BY   "FRANK  DANBY" 

8vo.     Decorated  cloth,  $1.50. 

**  By  far  the  most  powerful  and  searching 
piece  of  fiction  of  the  year." — Tlie  Bookman. 

*'  Has  a  vigor  like  that  Charles  Reade  used 
to  show." — Buffalo  Commercial. 

"  A  powerful  society  and  political  romance 
which  is  still  more  powerful  as  a  novel  of 
character. ' ' — Brooklyn  Eagle. 

*'The  most  effective  realistic  novel  of  a 
decade." — Professor  Guy  Carleton  Lee. 

**The  book  is  written  with  insight,  sincerity 
of  purpose,  and  rugged  virility." — The  New 
York  Commercial  Advertiser. 

*'  One  of  the  most  powerful  and  sustained 
stories  read  In  many  months." — Dr.  Harry 
Thurston  Peck. 

**A  novel  of  unusual  power,  brilliant,  and 
full  of  insight  into  character.  It  is  a  book 
to  read." — Detroit  Free  Press, 


J.   B.    LIPPINCOTT   COMPANY,   PHILADELPHIA 


THE  ISSUE 

By  GEORGE    MORGAN 

With  frontispiece  and  five  drawings   by  GEORGE   A.   WILLIAMS 
12mo.     Cloth.  $1.50 


*'By  long  odds  the  most  striking  literary  event  of  the 
year." — Philadelphia  North  American. 

**  'The  Issue'  is  one  of  the  best  novels  of  its  period." 
— Baltimore  Sun. 

"Mr.  Morgan  has  lifted  the  battlefields  of  the  South 
from  their  provincial  setting  and  marked  them  on  the  great 
war  map  of  the  world." — New  York  Evening  Post. 

' '  It  has  a  wide  sweep.  It  is  full  of  vigorous  movement, 
of  vivid,  stirring  pictures.  Its  turns  and  phrases  are  sur- 
prising, startling.  It  will  gratify  and  satisfy  the  reader." — 
New  York  Sun. 

"A  remarkably  clear,  just,  and  at  the  same  time  enter- 
taining pen-picture  of  the  most  momentous  period  in  Ameri- 
can history.  A  book  to  make  one  think.  It  is  one  of  the 
most  substantial  and  worthy  efforts  of  the  year.  The  most 
striking  work  of  its  type  extant.  Here  is  a  novel  of  Ameri- 
can life  that  is  really  worth  while." — Philadelphia  Record. 

•'Such  novels  as  'The  Issue'  are  rare  upon  any  theme. 
.  .  .  Superior  to  '  The  Crisis'  ...  a  work  that  must  have 
cost  tremendous  toil,  a  masterpiece." — Pittsburgh  Gazette. 

' '  Will  stand  prominently  forth  as  the  strongest  book  that 
the  season  has  given  us.  A  book  that  is  dramatic,  pictur- 
esque, and  is  yet  realistic.'' — Philadelphia  Ledger. 


J.   B.    LIPPINCOTT   COMPANY,    PHILADELPHIA 


PR 
V9U9o 


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